THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Ted  Barrett 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  SYMPATHY 


Need  there  groan  a  world  in  anguish  just  to  teach 

us  sympathy? 

R.  BROWNING 


THE  SCHOOL  OF 
SYMPATHY 


REMINISCENCES  IN  ESSAY  AND  VERSE 


AUTHOR  OF  "  PALMS  AND 


JULIAN  B.  ARNOLD 


.   033 


BOSTON 

MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 
MDCCCCXX 


COPYRIGHT-I920-BY 
MARSHALL    JONES    COMPANY 


THE    PLIMPTON    PRESS    •   NORWOOD   •  MASS   •   U  •  8  •  A 


A 


To  my  Wife 


MY    UNFAILING    SOURCE    OF   SYMPATHY 
I  DEDICATE  THESE  WRITTEN  THOUGHTS 


PREFACE 

Haras  non  numero  nisi  serenas 

Shadows  of  our  years  go  drifting  by, 
Across  the  lawns  of  memory,  where  lie 
Leaves  long  fallen,  whispering  as  they  fly 
Of  an  eternal  Sun. 

Shadows  of  our  moods,  seeking  to  belie 
The  braver  path  and  guide  our  steps  awry. 
Rive, them  with  smiles;  knowing  in  yonder  sky 
Reigneth  the  Sun. 

Shadows  of  our  souls  which  would  deny 
That  flowers  grow  by  rain.   Ah,  cease  to  sigh 
At  ills  beneficent.     Lift  faces  high, 
Kissed  by  the  Sun. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.  IN  THE  SCHOOL  OF  SYMPATHY       .  1 
II.  WHEN  SYMPATHY  WALKS 

DELICATELY 8 

III.  THE  GAMUT  OF  SYMPATHY      .     .  13 

IV.  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  LIFE  ...  18 
V.  THE  ASSURANCE  OF  GENIUS    .     .  20 

VI.  OUR  MAGIC  CARPETS    ....  32 

VTI.   THE  ASCENSION  OF  SONG  ...  38 

VIII.  RHEIMS  CATHEDRAL       ....  47 

IX.   THE  OTHER  SIDE  OF  THE  MOON  50 

X.  WHEN  THE  WORLD  WAS  YOUNG  .  56 

XI.   KNOWLEDGE 65 

XII.   BEGINNING  OUR  YEAR        ...  69 

XIII.  THE  VEIL  OF  ASTARTE       ...  75 

XIV.  THE  BROOK  OF  REVELATIONS  .     .  84 
XV.  A  PARABLE 88 

XVI.  A  ROMANY  PROPHET     ....  91 
XVII.  WHERE  LIFE  AND  DEATH  ARE 

NEIGHBORS 97 

XVin.  THE  MORNING  SIGH  OF  MEMNON.  103 

XIX.  LIGHT  AND  SHADOW       ....  108 

XX.  BY  HIM  WHO  SLEEPS  AT  PmiuE  117 

XXI.  PLAY  Our  THE  GAME    ...      .128 
be 


THE 
SCHOOL  OF  SYMPATHY 

i 

IN    THE     SCHOOL   OF    SYMPATHY 

The  secret  sympathy, 
The  silver  link,  the  silken  tie, 
Which  heart  to  heart  and  mind  to  mind 
In  body  and  in  soul  can  bind. 

IN  our  welded  language  there  are  words, 
which,  through  long  and  careless  usage, 
have  acquired  a  variety  of  meanings ;  while 
others  show  a  native  insularity,  rigidly  keeping 
to  themselves.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  in 
herent  disposition  of  words,  for  all  words  have 
their  individual  temperaments  and  not  only  in 
their  features  but  in  their  traits  betray  their 
parentage,  and  their  bringing-up.  Who,  for 
instance,  would  venture  to  trifle  with  the  gra 
cious  but  severe  aloofness  of  the  word  home? 
It  was  born  in  an  Aryan  tribe,  to  whose  body- 
politic  the  family  unit  was  the  soul,  and  it  has 
never  forgotten  its  lonely  childhood  in  the 
glades  of  Gothic  forests.  Around  its  wild  cradle 
were  ranged  highly  developed  civilizations  striv- 

[  1   J 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

ing  for  unification  and  the  mastery  of  the  world. 
To  them  the  widening  State  was  home.  The 
thought  implied  by  this  fair-haired  Gothic  word 
could  find  no  closer  synonym  on  Roman  lips 
than  the  dark-haired  word  domus  —  as  if  a 
house  were  necessarily  a  home  —  and  Rome  has 
bequeathed  to  the  modern  Spaniard  only  the 
word  hogar  (a  hearth),  while  French  lips  cam 
ouflage  the  idea  under  the  expression  chez  nous. 
Many  words  display  this  reservation  of  char 
acter,  and  like  Caesar's  wife  must  ever  be  above 
suspicion. 

Other  words  are  bolder.  They  go  forth  into 
the  world  and  become  accomplished  in  new  uses, 
helping  men  to  convey  their  thoughts  in  clearer 
ways ;  while  others  sink  to  levels  so  base  that 
one  sorrows  to  see  or  hear  them.  These  latter 
were  once  able  assistants  of  the  mind,  but  they 
have  suffered  wrong  by  those  who  set  them  to 
unworthy  tasks  or  crippled  them  and  have  lost 
their  birthright.  Occasionally  a  word  grows 
frivolous.  It  becomes  a  buffoon,  as  in  the 
modern  misusage  of  "blooming"  which  bars  it 
from  sedate  service.  Only  with  extreme  diffi 
dence  would  one  now  hail  the  "blooming  Spring" 
or  invite  his  associates  to  "Up  and  follow  him 
to  win  a  blooming  bride." 

[  2  ] 


IN     THE      SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

In  another  category  altogether  are  some 
words,  patrician  in  their  origin  and  born  to 
destinies  of  power  and  helpfulness.  Among 
them  we  may  always  recognize  the  title  of  this 
essay ;  a  word  having  great  possessions  yet  ever 
bounteous  to  the  poor.  Since  its  birth  in 
Greece  forty  centuries  ago  it  has  inherited 
much  abstract  thought  and  embraced  many 
meanings.  But  they  have  always  been  generous 
and  big-hearted.  How  should  it  be  otherwise 
with  a  word  that  was  born  of  such  parentage  as 
Syn  and  Pathos,  with  feeling?  Whatever  limi 
tations  this  word  may  once  have  had,  it  has 
none  now.  For  each  of  us  it  infers  the  founda 
tion  of  compassionate  thoughts  and  deeds.  If 
there  were  truth  in  the  adage  that  the  purpose 
of  a  coat  is  to  cover  a  multitude  of  sins,  we  may 
balance  the  equation  by  asserting  that  a  cloak 
of  sympathy  covers  countless  graces.  Like  the 
rays  of  the  sun  which  seem  only  to  lighten  the 
world  in  the  daytime  but  live  in  the  dark  heart 
of  coal  or  in  the  closed  flower  in  its  midnight 
sleep,  so  sympathy,  in  its  variant  phases,  is  the 
basic  cause  of  nearly  all  our  kindlier  attitudes 
of  mind.  Indeed  it  would  be  difficult  to  aim, 
even  distantly,  at  the  fulfillment  of  that  com 
plex  commandment  "thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 

[  3  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

bor  as  thyself"  if  evolution  had  not  saturated 
us  with  sympathetic  knowledge  of  what  our 
neighbor  asks. 

Some  years  ago  in  London  at  one  of  those 
salons  where  gather,  by  a  sort  of  mental  capil 
lary  attraction,  the  men  and  women  famous  in 
current  history,  I  overheard  an  exquisite  use  of 
this  word  sympathy  in  its  broader  sense.  I  was 
conversing  with  the  author  of  The  Light  of 
Asia,  when  our  hostess  naively  asked  him, 

"In  which  of  all  the  many  lands  you  have 
visited  did  you  find  and  bring  away  your  pretty 
manners?" 

"Madame,  if  I  have  any  such  possessions 
other  than  in  your  kind  belief,  I  did  not  need  to 
seek  them  in  travel ;  I  found  them  nearer  your 
self." 

"Then  you  shall  tell  me  where  this  mag 
netized  spot  may  be,  and  my  children  shall  play 
there,  for  the  benefit  of  posterity." 

"Truly  it  is  a  playground  for  children  as 
well  as  for  those  grown  up.  But  seriously,  if 
I  tell  you,  you  will  not  betray  my  secret,  will 
you?" 

"Indeed  I  will  not." 

"Very  well.  When  I  was  a  little  boy  I  went 
to  a  school,  still  flourishing,  which  was  kept  by 

[  4  ] 


IN      THE      SCHOOL     OF      SYMPATHY 

a  lady;  and  there  I  learnt  a  number  of  things 
which  have  been  useful  to  myself  and  I  trust  to 
others." 

"Oh,  do  tell  me  her  name,  you  said  you 
would." 

"Yes,  but  you  will  not  tell?" 

"No  indeed  I  will  not ;  I  promise,  except  that 
my  children  shall  certainly  go  there.  You 
could  not  mind  that  I  am  sure?" 

"Madame,  they  will  go  there  I  know,  having 
so  sweet  a  mother.  The  school  was  kept  by 
Dame  Sympathy." 

How  much  is  hidden  beneath  that  word.  It 
had  been  the  talisman  of  a  long  and  varied 
career  and  had  carried  its  wearer  into  the 
hearts  of  millions  of  men.  Yet  it  was  confided 
as  a  secret,  for  sympathy  is  curiously  shy. 
Demurely  it  takes  by-paths  to  its  goal  rather 
than  the  crowded  roads,  and  is  ever  diffident  of 
letting  the  left  hand  know  what  the  right  hand 
doeth.  Its  nature  is  so ;  but  probably  past 
centuries  of  narrow  dogma,  wherein  more  gen 
erous  ideas  expressed  themselves  covertly,  have 
helped  to  ingrain  in  men  the  habit  of  hiding 
their  feelings.  Like  the  Spartan  boy  bearing 
the  fox  in  his  bosom,  the  wounds  of  sympathy 
had,  in  past  ages,  often  to  be  borne  in  silence. 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

Can  anyone  imagine  that  above  the  blood- 
lust  which  hovered  like  some  foul  miasma  over 
the  gladiatorial  displays  of  Rome  there  did  not 
ascend  a  radiant  mist  of  sympathetic  thoughts ; 
radiant  as  the  arc  of  promise,  misty  as  the 
eyes  of  Eon  weeping  for  her  slain  Memnon? 
The  Vestal  virgins  might  turn  their  thumbs 
downwards  dooming  the  fallen  to  death,  but 
many  a  gentler  wish  went  forth  to  spare,  lead 
ing  to  a  dawn  when  the  Coliseum  should  be 
remembered  only  as  a  madness  of  the  night. 

So  must  it  have  been  with  many  a  dark  page 
of  history.  Even  a  modern  crowd  is  sometimes 
sphinx-like  in  betraying  its  real  leanings  until 
some  sudden  spark  fires  the  impulse  of  its  sym 
pathies.  And  like  the  crowd,  the  individual  too 
often  wears  an  impassive  mask,  disguising  the 
evolving  soul.  We  hail  the  event  which  tears 
from  us  or  from  others  the  shadows  of  this 
mask,  and  shows  the  light  shining  in  the  eyes 
of  the  heart.  Truth  dwelleth  not  alone  at  the 
bottom  of  her  well. 

But  the  writing  on  faces  is  not  for  all  to 
read.  A  charming  story  was  told  by  John 
Ruskin  to  show  how  blind  may  be  even  the  most 
sympathetic  eyes.  He  was  traveling  in  a  rail 
way  car  and  had  taken  his  seat  opposite  a  man 

[  6  ] 


IN     THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

whose  features  distressed  him  by  their  plain 
ness  and  even  harsh  lines.  Presently  his  fellow 
traveler  dropped  his  paper,  and  the  great  es 
sayist  picked  it  up  and  handed  it  back  to  him. 
As  he  did  so  his  companion  thanked  him  with 
such  a  smile  that  inwardly  Ruskin  said  "Merci 
ful  gods,  what  a  glorious  face ;  and  what  a  fool 
I  was." 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


II 

WHEN    SYMPATHY   WALKS 
DELICATELY 

The  more  we  know,  the  better  we  forgive, 
Who'er  feels  deeply,  feels  for  all  who  live. 

A  NOTABLE  quality  of  sympathy  is  its 
proneness   to  walk  delicately.      It   has 
been  said  that  the  sympathy  which  con 
tains  a  vestige  of  pity  is  not  true  sympathy, 
and  the  phrase  aptly  indicates  a  desire  to  go 
about  its  compassionate  business  as  quietly  as 
possible.     Like  the  violet  it  hastens  to  solace 
the  hurts  of  winter, 

But  hides  the  while  under  tender  leaves 
Which  must  spread  broad  in  other  suns,  and  lift 
In  later  lives  a  crowned  head  to  the  sky. 

In  the  anxiety  which  sympathy  displays  not 
to  be  recognized  it  will  screen  its  identity,  or 
like  Victor  Hugo,  when  his  little  granddaughter 
was  put  into  the  closet  for  some  delinquency,  it 
will  wait  until  the  stern  authorities  are  not 
looking  and  then  slip  a  box  of  chocolates  into 

[  8] 


SYMPATHY    WALKS    DELICATELY 

the  wrong-doer's  hand.  For  sympathy  is  an 
incorrigible  contravener  of  the  law. 

This  solicitude  of  sympathy  to  escape  atten 
tion  may  be  illustrated  in  the  following  recol 
lection.  The  scene  is  a  dinner  party  in  London 
about  twenty-five  years  ago.  Amongst  the 
guests  was  John  Ruskin,  whom  the  cultured 
public  knows  as  a  great  critic,  and  the  sub 
merged  world  knew  as  a  man  who  gave  his 
fortune  away  in  charities.  Ruskin  had  been 
saying  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  give  alms  at 
random,  and  that  men  should  imitate  the  gods 
and  help  only  those  who  helped  themselves.  It 
was  inevitable  that  Olympus,  thus  invoked, 
should  hear  and  protest ;  and  the  bolt  of  Zeus 
fell  in  this  wise. 

Opposite  Ruskin  was  sitting  the  editor  of  a 
great  London  newspaper,  wielding  in  those  days 
probably  as  large  a  measure  of  influence  in 
British  affairs  as  any  Cabinet  minister.  With 
a  grave  face,  but  humorous  twinkle  in  his  eyes, 
he  turned  to  our  host  saying: 

"What  Mr.  Ruskin  alleges  as  the  creed  of 
charity  is  possibly  practiced  by  some,  happily 
not  by  many,  certainly  not  by  himself.  If  I 
may  be  temporarily  shielded  from  the  arrows 
of  such  a  contestant,  I  will  relate  a  little  story 

[  9  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OP     SYMPATHY 

which  may  support  my  denial  of  his  assertion 
and  induce  him  to  cry  with  Benedict  'A  mir 
acle,  our  hands  against  our  hearts.' 

"Some  years  ago  there  was  heard  in  one  of 
our  magistrate's  courts  a  case  affecting  wide 
interests,  sordid  in  its  details  but  so  important 
in  its  bearings  that  it  drew  to  that  minor  court 
many  men  whose  studies  led  them  to  take  note 
of  such  things.  There  were,  of  course,  sundry 
smaller  eases  to  be  dealt  with  before  the  cause 
celebre;  the  pitiful  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  a 
great  city  washed  into  these  magisterial  eddies 
on  the  morning  tide. 

"Amongst  the  onlookers,  thus  induced  to  visit 
this  clearing-house  of  sorrow,  were  two  men 
seated  together  in  the  well  of  the  court,  keenly 
observant  of  all  that  passed  before  them.  The 
minor  cases  were  swiftly  disposed  of;  drunken 
ness,  thefts,  and  the  many  discords  of  life; 
when  a  final  delinquent  was  placed  on  the  pris 
oner's  stand,  a  fine  young  fellow  endowed  by 
nature  to  be  the  builder  of  gladness  for  himself 
and  others,  but  now  ragged,  blear-eyed  and 
corrupted  with  evil  communications.  The 
charge  against  him  was  that  of  knocking  his 
wife  down  and  grievously  assaulting  her  in  a 
fit  of  drunkenness.  With  the  abruptness  of 

[  10  ] 


SYMPATHY    WALKS    DELICATELY 

justice  thus  dispensed  the  only  witness  was  at 
once  called  —  his  wife.  She  took  her  place  in 
the  grim  scene,  a  mere  child  in  years,  with  her 
pretty  face  full  of  suppressed  tears;  and  like 
some  graceful  animal  caught  in  the  hunter's 
snare  she  gazed  frightenedly  at  those  around 
her,  the  magistrate  and  the  unknown  crowd, 
and  then  her  eyes  timidly  sought  the  prisoner's 
box  —  and  met  his ! 

"Who  may  know  what  thoughts  of  anger 
filled  her  heart  when  she  stepped  into  the  wit 
ness  box ;  but  neither  heart  nor  face  had  anger 
in  them  now.  Behind  the  tearful  eyes  there  was 
a  tenderness  which  lit  their  sadness  and  bade 
her  heart  forgive  this  her  Calvary.  Vaguely 
she  heard  her  name  called  by  the  official  of  the 
court,  and  her  evidence  demanded.  In  silence 
she  continued  to  look  towards  the  place  where 
stood  the  man  she  loved. 

"Then  the  magistrate  asked,  'Is  it  true  that 
the  prisoner  knocked  you  down,  and  treated 
you  so  violently  and  badly?  Do  not  be  afraid; 
tell  me.' 

"The  gentleness  of  the  tone  awakened  her 
from  mental  vales  where  love  was  blind  with  its 
own  tears  to  the  realities  around  her  —  to  be 
transmuted  by  that  love.  For  with  an  utter 

C  11  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

abandonment  of  fear  she  suddenly  stretched 
out  her  arms,  crying,  'Oh,  no,  no,  no,  Sir,  it  is 
not  true;  he  could  not  really  mean  to  hurt  me. 
It  is  not  true ;  give  him  back  to  me.' 

"And  the  wise  magistrate  gave  him  back  to 
her. 

"But  in  the  well  of  that  court  one  of  the  two 
watchers  of  this  scene  whispered  to  the  other, 
'Friend,  you  are  the  editor  of  a  great  news 
paper.  Start  a  subscription  for  that  pair. 
Set  them  up  in  a  clean  and  happy  life ;  so  shall 
the  good  God  bless  you.  Here  is  my  contribu 
tion  to  the  fund  you  will  collect.' 

"Kind  host,  the  man  who  started  that  fund 
which  has  given  to  that  pair  of  lovers  a  useful 
and  glad  life  in  one  of  Britain's  great  colonies 
was  Mr.  Ruskin ;  I  was  only  the  editor,  the  in 
strument  of  a  creed  more  gracious  than  the  one 
he  offered  just  now  as  the  mask  which  sympathy 
ofttimes  holds  before  her  face." 


[  12  ] 


THE     GAMUT     OF     SYMPATHY 


ni 

THE  GAMUT  OF  SYMPATHY 

There  is  in  souls  a  sympathy  with  sounds 
And  as  the  mind  is  pitched  the  ear  is  pleased. 

SYMPATHIES  which  are  aroused  in  us  by 
scenes,  colors,  sounds  and  scents  afford 
food  for  thought.  I  once  took  some  care 
to  ascertain  what  colors  were  preferred  by  lead 
ing  thinkers  and  artists  of  our  time,  and  the 
results  were  curiously  indicative  of  the  chooser's 
mind.  Several  poets  and  men  of  science  loved 
the  clearer  tints  of  yellow.  The  author  of  the 
Light  of  Asia  had  an  Oriental  passion  for  all 
colors,  but  rapturously  praised,  "the  melted 
gold  of  the  morning  sun,  the  yellow  sheen  of  the 
Buddhist  robe,  the  ochre  of  a  waving  field  of 
wheat."  The  accepted  color  of  intellectuality 
was  strong  in  the  sympathetic  thoughts  of  such 
men. 

With  novelists  and  dramatists  I  found  that 
deep  reds  were  favorite  tints.  The  late  Charles 
Reade  saw  life  phrased  "in  the  carmines  of  the 

[  13  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

setting  sun,"  Clark  Russell  sensed  it  "in  the 
pinks  with  which  the  dawn  paints  the  sky,"while 
a  popular  lady  novelist,  Mrs.  Lynn  Lynton, 
gave  me  quite  a  lecture  on  the  pageantry  of 
history  which  to  her  eyes  was  conjured  forth 
upon  the  sight  of  purple;  "That  royal,  regnant 
purple,"  she  said,  "which  is  the  color  of  the 
robes  of  princes,  the  imperial  border  of  the 
toga,  the  gift  of  the  sea-gods  who  gave  pearls 
to  queens  but  the  treasure  of  the  shells  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon  to  kings." 

Of  sounds  the  sympathetic  powers  seem  still 
more  subtle,  and  reach  higher  than  the  realms 
of  mundane  music.  With  some  this  gift  is  but 
slightly  developed.  Others  are  so  responsive 
that  sounds  for  them  have  close  affinities  with 
color  vibrations  and  their  ears  are  almost  as 
sensitive  as  microphones.  I  have  heard  a  noted 
violinist,  Signer  Romane,  stop  in  the  middle  of 
an  important  solo  because  the  almost  inaudible 
rumble  of  a  distant  carriage  marred  the  con 
cord  between  himself  and  his  violin.  The  same 
msestro  told  me  that  being  overtaken  by  a  storm 
he  sought  shelter  in  a  barn,  and  whilst  there 
was  so  impressed  by  the  majesty  of  the  thunder 
that  he  took  his  violin  from  its  case  and  sought 
to  reproduce  the  rolling  tones.  At  last  attain- 


THE     GAMUT     OF     SYMPATHY 

ing  success  he  cried  exultantly,  "I  have  it,  I 
have  it ;  now  I  can  talk  with  God." 

The  famous  operatic  singer,  Madam  Gomez, 
confided  to  me  that  there  were  certain  notes  in 
her  voice  which  could  never  be  happily  wedded 
to  French,  and  other  notes  which  obstinately 
refused  to  speak  in  English,  but  that  it  had 
always  been  a  delight  to  her  to  sing  from  her 
heart  the  vowels  of  Italian.  Such  instances  are, 
perhaps,  the  expressions  of  physical  enjoyment 
experienced  by  musicians  in  the  exercise  of  their 
art,  rather  than  expositions  of  sympathy. 
There  are  sounds,  however,  which  reach  us  not 
always  by  the  ear;  delicate  notes  finding  re 
sponsive  vibrations  in  our  inmost  souls  which 
wake  far  memories  or  bear  us  to  the  skies  upon 
the  rhythm  of  eternal  harmonies. 

And  scents!  Why  have  the  poets,  in  their 
multitude  of  odes  and  sonnets,  conspired  to 
omit  all  mention  of  the  nose?  Lorenzo  de 
Medici  was  as  original  in  poesy  as  in  the  man 
agement  of  Florentine  politics  when  he  wrote 
of  Nencia, 

Her  eyes!  and  twixt  them  comes  the  winsome  nose 
With  proud  pink  nostrils  like  the  pits  in  a  rose. 

The  nose  is  by  no  means  negligible.     Many 
[  15  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

people  are  extremely  sensitive  to  perfumes.  The 
incense-laden  air  of  a  cathedral,  the  smell  of 
pines  and  woodlands,  or  the  scented  gratitude 
of  field  and  hedgerow  when  rain  has  fallen  strike 
chords  in  their  inner  consciousness.  Memories 
long  dormant  are  aroused,  or  past  scenes  re 
called  by  some  chance  encounter  with  a  par 
ticular  odor.  Persons  with  artistic  tempera 
ments  are  especially  susceptible  to  perfumes,  as 
if  there  were  some  sympathetic  association  be 
tween  the  appreciation  of  beauty  and  the  vi 
brations  set  up  by  these  elusive  and  delicate 
aromas.  For  myself  I  occasionally  pass  within 
the  magic  sway  of  some  scent  which  instan 
taneously  wafts  me  to  lands  wherein  I  wandered 
long  years  ago.  Wood  smoke  mingled  with  the 
breath  of  the  sea,  and  what  else  I  know  not, 
bears  me  away  to  the  Fjords  of  Norway;  or 
the  dust  of  a  country  road  trembling  in  the 
sunbeams  of  a  summer-day  and  charged  with 
the  pollen  of  clover,  will  whisper  "Your  feet 
tread  again  the  sands  of  Egypt,  and  the  Lord 
of  thy  Heaven  is  Ammon." 

Verily  the  field  of  sympathy  has  no  boun 
dary.  Ultimately,  it  may  prove  to  be  the 
subtlest  law  of  growth,  boundless  as  infinitude, 
continuing  as  eternity,  more  omnipotent  than 

[  16  ] 


THE      GAMUT      OP      SYMPATHY 

the  faith  which  moveth  mountains.  No  depths 
beneath  us,  no  sanctuaries  above  deter  it. 
Downward  it  carries  us  beyond  the  wraiths  of 
earliest  forms  of  life  held  in  archean  granites ; 
down  to  the  buried  silt  of  primal  oceans  grieved 
with  such  weight  of  superincumbent  hills  that 
out  of  pressure  and  dull  pain  this  ooze  evolves 
as  marble,  tinted  as  the  mists  of  sunrise. 

Upward  our  sympathy  has  endless  range. 
Upon  the  wings  of  the  young-eyed  soul  it 
mounts  unfettered.  Across  the  silver-atolled 
wastes  of  heaven  it  voyages  unchallenged.  With 
the  spiral  of  the  moving  stars  it  climbs  to  that 
far  vortex  of  time  and  space  where  dwells  the 
brooding  Power  of  Good.  For  surely  if  the 
lowest  note  in  the  cosmic  scale  entreats  sym 
pathy  of  us  shall  not  the  highest  ask  it  also? 
If,  as  a  law  of  physics,  it  be  true  that  a  child 
stamping  on  its  nursery  floor  sets  in  motion 
vibrations  which  are  sensed  by  the  farthest 
planet  of  our  system,  shall  not  the  forces  fo 
cused  in  sympathy  aid  not  only  all  that  is  but 
also  Him? 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

IV 

IN    THE   GARDEN    OF   LIFE 

PRIVATE  GEORGE  HUBBS,  late  of  the 
Ypres   sector,  lay  a-dying  in  the  base 
hospital.     "Do  you  think,  Nurse,  that 
there  is  any  chance  for  me?"  he  asked.     And 
the  Nurse,  aware  of  his  approaching  death,  an 
swered,  "Yours  is  a  serious  case  but  the  Doctor 
never  loses  hope,  nor  would  he  wish  you  to  do 
so." 

"I  was  not  thinking  of  my  body,  Nurse.  I 
saw  the  White  Christ  walking  in  the  trench  an 
hour  before  I  got  my  ticket  to  the  West  and  I 
will  obey  the  Great  Doctor  and  hope.  Will 
you  give  me  one  of  those  flowers  to  —  to  take 
with  me?" 

WHAT  THE  FLOWER  SAID  TO 
PRIVATE   HUBBS 

And  She  supposing  Him  the  Gardener; 

Fool,  as  if  God's  Son, 

Cares  for  the  flowers  that  are  done. 

Ah!  But  He  cares; 
And  in  the  garden  of  His  heart 

[  18] 


IN    THE    GARDEN    OF    LIFE 

The  humblest  life  finds  tendence,  and  its  part 
Is  spaced,  wherein  it  grows  towards  beauty. 

He  watcheth 
How  the  Sower's  hands 
Scatter  the  souls  of  men  amid  the  lands 
Each  in  its  fitting  clime  and  time  — 
Seedlings  of  Heaven,  linking  harvests  past  and  yet  to 

be  — 

Clad  in  their  husks  and  shells, 
Discarded  ere  the  full  bloom  tells 
The  guerdon  of  a  season's  life, 
And  gain  of  strife. 

He  knoweth 

The  needs  of  all  within  that  garden  wide 
And  guardeth  each.     Ever  what  best  betide 
That  He  bestoweth: 

Sending  fair  winds,  the  beat  of  angel  wings, 
Filled  with  the  hope  that  brings 
A  zest  to  effort.     Using  the  tears  of  life,  like  rain 
From  passing  clouds,  to  teach 
The  buds  of  aspiration,  seek  and  gain 
The  sun-lit  kiss  of  God. 

He  lifteth 

The  drooping  stem;  the  tendril  sees 
And  guides  its  weakling  arms  to  heights  above 
The  tangled  growths; 

And  where  the  light  and  sunshine  promise  love 
Their  small  hands  setteth. 
From  weeds  and  briars  His  garden  frees: 
Protecting  and  persuading  till  the  tears 
Of  storms  are  past,  and  each  life  rears 
Its  heart  of  gold  to  face  the  golden  Sun 
And  smile  in  beauty  toward  the  Light: 
Ah !  But  He  cares. 

[  19  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

V 
THE    ASSURANCE    OF    GENIUS 

What  is  genius  but  deep  feeling 
Waken'd  by  passion,  to  revealing? 

GENIUS  has  much  conscience  but  little 
morality.  Like  the  prism  thrown  upon 
a  wall  by  the  chance  moving  of  a  glass 
it  enthralls  us  with  the  display  of  its  own  in 
timacy  with  light ;  yet  in  nowise  will  it  endure 
obstruction.  In  the  realms  of  its  own  expres 
sion,  whether  of  science,  of  literature  or  of  art, 
fear  is  as  foreign  to  its  purpose  as  insincerity, 
but  it  suffers  sorely  under  the  conventionalities 
which  constrain  those  who  climb  on  lowlier 
paths.  Biography  sparkles  with  instances,  for 
by  grace  divine  the  cycles  of  mankind's  dark 
ness  have  been  lit  by  a  myriad  wayward  stars 
of  genius  whose  light  evades  the  law  of  vibra 
tory  waves  and  is  both  instant  and  continuing. 
To  the  constellation  that  shone  above  my 
natal  hour  I  turn  my  mental  telescope  and 
watch  a  single  star,  the  late  Sir  Edwin  Arnold. 
Some  acquaintance  with  the  assurance  of  his 
genius  may  not  alone  exemplify  the  title  of  this 
inadequate  sketch  but  also  prove  of  interest.  It 

[  20  ] 


THE    ASSURANCE     OF     GENIUS 

may  be  said  of  most  men  that  they  are  moulded 
by  their  environment  and  of  a  few  that  they 
bend  their  environment  to  themselves.  In  a 
marked  degree  the  author  of  The  Light  of  Asia 
belonged  to  the  latter  type.  Reared  in  that 
atmosphere  of  dogmatic  beliefs  and  dull  con 
servatism  which  obtained  in  the  homes  of  Eng 
lish  country  squires  of  the  Victorian  era,  his 
earliest  instincts  freed  him  from  its  thralldom, 
and  steeped  his  mind  with  tales  of  the  enchanted 
lands  of  Asia.  A  pentecostal  gift  of  tongues 
descended  upon  him.  As  a  child  he  invested  in 
a  bilingual  Greek  and  Latin  testament,  teaching 
himself  to  follow  in  those  languages  the  epistles 
in  his  village  church.  Then  he  purchased  a 
Hebrew  grammar,  learning  a  page  of  it  each 
day  until  he  could  read  the  Talmud  in  the 
vernacular.  Other  languages  were  as  readily 
acquired,  until  in  the  course  of  years  he  was 
eloquent  in  twenty.  But  always  he  had,  in 
Elizabeth's  phrase,  foul  scorn  of  grammars. 
Often  he  would  say,  "We  learn  the  tender 
strength  of  language  at  our  mother's  knee  and 
grow  to  love  its  beauty  and  revere  its  power. 
Then  from  the  shadows  of  life  creeps  forth  an 
assassin  who  stabs  it  in  the  back,  and  his  name 
is  Grammarian.  If  you  must  wrong  language  by 

[  21   ] 


THE     SCHOOL,     OF     SYMPATHY 

listening  to  the  cold  analysis  of  grammar  do 
so,  but  as  soon  as  may  be  throw  the  grammar 
over  the  garden  wall  and  get  back  to  some 
master  writer  of  the  tongue  you  would  learn 
and  follow  him  with  a  dictionary."  Truly  a 
rebellious  scholar. 

So  in  poetry  his  orbit  was  elliptic.  He  lisped 
in  numbers  for  the  numbers  came,  and  his 
earlier  poems  brought  him  into  literary  inti 
macy  with  Victor  Hugo,  Emerson,  Swinburne 
and  others  of  the  galactic  plane  he  traversed. 
But  his  first  public  triumph  (an  instructive  in 
stance  of  the  assurance  of  genius)  occurred 
on  his  taking  the  Newdigate  prize  at  Oxford 
with  his  poem,  The  Feast  of  Belshazzar. 
According  to  the  Oxford  custom  it  was  recited 
by  the  author  in  the  Sheldonian  Theatre  and 
its  unusual  vigor  and  wealth  of  expression  at 
once  secured  for  it  wide  acknowledgment.  But 
in  the  circles  of  scholarship  its  erudition  ap 
peared  so  remarkable  that  the  Wise  Men  of  the 
University  sought  from  the  young  poet  infor 
mation  concerning  the  sources  of  the  Akkadian 
and  Babylonian  names  which  add  such  racial 
colour  to  the  verses.  In  complimenting  him  on 
the  word-picture  which  he  had  painted  of  the 
fall  of  the  Chaldean  power  one  of  his  interro- 

[  22  ] 


THE    ASSURANCE     OF     GENIUS 

gators  quoted  the  lines: 

No  lack  of  goodly  company  was  there, 

No  lack  of  laughing  eyes  to  light  the  cheer; 

From  Dara  trooped  they,  from  Daremma's  grove 

The  suns  of  battle  and  the  moons  of  love; 

From  where  Arrissa's  silver  waters  sleep 

To  Imla's  marshes  and  the  inland  deep; 

From  pleasant  Calah  and  from  Sittacene 

The  horseman's  captain  and  the  harem's  queen. 

To  the  conclave  of  learned  Dons  he  suavely 
answered  that  the  scattered  nature  of  his  read 
ings  forbade  his  remembering  at  the  moment  the 
actual  sources  of  these  references.  But  in  after 
years  he  confessed  to  the  writer  of  this  tribute 
to  his  brilliant  if  unconventional  mind  that  he 
coined  all  these  Chaldean  names  to  suit  the 
scanning  of  his  lines.  It  was  worthy  of  a  David 
Chatterton  thus  to  beard  the  Assyriologists  in 
their  den. 

This  poem  made  its  impress  also  upon  the 
mind  of  a  young  actor,  afterwards  to  be  known 
to  fame  as  Sir  Henry  Irving.  Of  the  many 
recitative  pieces  in  his  repertoire  this  remained 
his  favorite,  and  it  formed  the  initial  link  in  an 
enduring  friendship  between  the  author  and  its 
gifted  interpreter.  During  the  residence  of  the 
poet  in  Japan  he  wrote  for  Irving  the  Samurai 
tragedy  of  Adzuma;  sending  the  play  to  me  to 

[23  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

arrange  for  its  public  rendering  at  the  Lyceum. 
But  in  the  conversations  which  I  had  with 
Irving  on  this  matter  we  encountered  numerous 
technical  difficulties  connected  with  the  trans 
planting  to  the  boards  of  a  London  theatre  a 
work  so  oriental  in  thought  and  setting,  and 
the  dramatic  death  of  Irving  at  Bradford 
abruptly  terminated  our  efforts  towards  its 
production. 

Amongst  those  also  present  at  the  first  read 
ing  of  the  Feast  of  Belshazzar  in  the  Sheldonian 
Theatre  was  Benjamin  Disraeli,  then  just  rising 
to  fame  and  destined  to  become  as  the  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield  and  Premier  of  Great  Britain  one 
of  the  great  figures  of  the  Victorian  age.  On 
being  introduced  to  the  hero  of  the  day  the 
future  Prime  Minister  said,  in  his  somewhat 
florid  diction,  "Young  Sir,  I  congratulate  you. 
The  heights  of  Parnassus  call  you;  other 
heights  call  me.  In  the  years  that  are  coming 
both  of  us  will  answer  to  their  summons,  and 
from  the  benches  of  Literature  and  State  we 
will  wave  again  our  salutations  of  this  day." 
Verily  the  assurance  of  genius  has  at  times  the 
vision  of  prophecy.  The  pen  of  the  young 
author  was  destined  to  prove  a  potent  helper  to 
the  policies  of  Disraeli;  and  on  the  brows  of 

[24] 


THE     ASSURANCE     OF     GENIUS 

both  these  men  was  written  the  ultimate  ful 
fillment  of  the  promise  to  renew  their  saluta 
tions. 

It  happened  in  this  wise.  Long  afterwards 
when  the  nations  of  the  world  awaited  anxiously 
the  outcome  of  certain  intricate  and  dangerous 
negotiations  arising  from  the  errors  of  the  Con 
gress  of  Berlin  there  came  a  day  when  the  bal 
ancing  of  the  conflicting  national  interests  hung 
upon  the  decision  which  would  be  pronounced 
at  the  impending  opening  of  Parliament.  Upon 
the  wording  of  the  "speech  from  the  throne" 
which  would  open  the  deliberations  of  Parlia 
ment  depended  in  large  measure  whether  the 
dogs  of  war  could  be  held  in  leash  or  whether 
they  must  be  loosed  and  make  a  shambles  of 
Europe.  Two  nights  before  the  fateful  date  I 
was  dining  with  Sir  Edwin  discussing  the 
omens,  for  as  the  editor  of  the  leading  London 
newspaper  and  one  of  the  keenest  judges  of  his 
country's  mood,  no  man  was  more  eminently 
fitted  to  act  as  oracle  at  this  hour.  So  must 
have  thought  the  all-powerful  Prime  Minister, 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  for  in  the  midst  of  our  con 
versation  a  messenger  arrived  from  Downing 
Street  inviting  Sir  Edwin  to  draft  the  history- 
making  speech  which  should  proclaim  to  the 

[25  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

world  the  British  policy  and  still  the  storm. 
Clear  was  the  vision  which  had  foreseen  the  day 
when  from  the  benches  of  Literature  and  State 
these  two  men,  so  different  in  temperaments  yet 
so  conscious  of  their  innate  strength,  would 
wave  again  their  salutations. 

In  the  paths  of  travel  the  assurance  of  genius 
bore  our  subject  unscathed  by  field  and  flood. 
Touristdom  was  to  him  an  abomination,  and 
he  objected  to  taking  the  same  road  twice  if  an 
alternative  way  might  be  found;  but  once  en 
voyage  no  untoward  circumstance  could  affect 
his  serene  temper.  It  was  my  privilege  to 
wander  with  him  in  many  countries,  and  always 
he  fulfilled  his  axiom  that  the  man  who  does  not 
live  in  heart  a  boy  never  was  born  one.  I  have 
seen  him  supremely  at  home  in  a  native  mule 
cart  on  the  frontiers  of  Morocco ;  saluting  the 
viking-gods  as  he  sailed  his  fishing  smack 
through  the  angers  of  the  North  Sea ;  quoting 
Tacitus  as  his  authority  for  the  building  of  a 
log  hut  on  the  marge  of  a  fjord  in  Norway; 
sitting  cross-legged  in  an  Aleppo  shop  the 
whilst  he  discussed  politics  with  a  malignant 
and  unturbaned  Turk;  seated  at  the  campfire 
of  a  Bedaween  village  after  our  dahabeah  had 
been  wrecked  on  the  Nile;  tramping  through 

[26] 


THE    ASSURANCE     OF     GENIUS 

Wales  with  a  couple  of  donkeys  which  we  had 
commandeered  to  carry  our  knapsacks ;  and  in 
a  score  of  other  abnormal  situations  none  of 
which  might  disturb  the  assurance  of  his  phil 
osophy. 

As  a  conversationalist  he  was,  of  course, 
noted  for  his  brilliancy  and  depth,  but  always 
there  lurked  in  his  phrases  some  surprise,  some 
happy  radio-quality  which  saw  profoundly,  lit 
keenly,  and  straightway  upset  accepted  the 
ories.  His  wit  had  a  rapier  suddenness  but  ever 
carried  a  button  at  its  point  lest  it  should  hurt. 
I  do  not  think  that  anyone  ever  knew  him  to 
utter  an  ungracious  comment  of  earth  or  sky 
or  sea  or  anything  that  therein  is.  On  one 
occasion  I  recollect  that  his  fellow  guests  were 
laughing  at  the  vagaries  of  dudes  and  mashers, 
and  someone  invited  the  opinion  of  the  grave 
but  kindly  poet.  He  answered  simply,  "If  a 
young  gentleman  thinks  that  it  is  the  right 
thing  to  walk  abroad  with  a  large  expanse  of 
shirt  front  and  an  assertive  diamond  glistening 
in  its  midst  —  if  he  really  thinks  that  this  is 
the  right  thing  to  do,  and  does  it ;  how  sweet  of 
him!" 

In  graver  style  he  would  courteously  but 
logically  defend  large  theories.  To  the  too 

[27  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

sweeping  demand  of  the  late  W.  E.  Gladstone, 
"Of  course,  Sir  Edwin,  you  will  grant  that 
Europe  was  appointed  for  the  Christians,"  I 
heard  him  reply,  "Certainly,  but  on  one  con 
dition."  "And  what  may  be  your  condition?" 
asked  Gladstone.  "That  you  will  grant  that 
Asia  was  appointed  —  for  whom  shall  we  say, 
Buddhists,  Brahmins,  Moslems,  Shinto-wor 
shippers?"  "By  no  means  can  I  grant  you 
that."  "Then,  Mr.  Gladstone,  I  fear  that  I 
cannot  accept  your  major  premises." 

Nor  was  his  pen  less  ready  than  his  speech. 
He  scattered  verses  as  a  steel  turning  lathe 
showers  its  sparks.  Countless  graceful  and  un 
published  poems  of  his  lie  perdu  in  birthday 
volumes  and  autograph  collections,  while  the 
hotel  books  of  every  land  contain  his  variorum 
notce  in  witty  and  pertinent  poesy.  Thought 
with  him  clothed  itself  instantly  in  apt  expres 
sion.  I  once  handed  him  an  evening  newspaper, 
pointing  out  a  paragraph  which  mentioned  that 
Mr.  Colman,  of  mustard  fame,  had  just  been 
knighted.  Taking  a  pencil  from  his  pocket  he 
wrote  on  the  margin  of  the  paper  without  a 
moment's  hesitation, 

Oh,  new-made  Knight  of  Colman's  mustard, 
The  meaning  of  this  badge  we  see, 

[28  ] 


THE    ASSUEANCE     OF     GENIUS 

How  many  a  knight  who  fought  and  blustered, 
Hath  wept  and  yielded  meeting  thee. 

To  the  usual  accessories  of  a  man  of  letters 
he  was  wholly  indifferent.  His  books  were 
mainly  composed  in  the  unconsidered  trifles  of 
time.  They  assisted  to  bind  together  the  ac 
tivities  of  a  life  built  of  large  affairs.  The 
Light  of  Asia,  in  its  first  rough  condition,  was 
written  in  odd  minutes  on  the  backs  of  en 
velopes,  the  margins  of  newspapers  and  his 
shirt  cuffs.  If  his  pencil  broke  or  the  quill  pen 
grew  moody  he  turned  it  round  and  dipping  the 
blunt  end  into  the  ink  pot  would  proceed  uncon 
cernedly  with  the  composition.  In  the  absence 
of  any  such  implement  I  have  heard  him  re 
mark,  "What,  no  pen?  well,  bring  me  the 
kitchen  poker."  Books  gathered  unto  him  as 
cosmic  dust  settles  upon  our  whirling  planet; 
but  though  he  absorbed  literature,  he  would 
seldom  read  a  book  twice,  and  he  gave  away  his 
libraries  as  fast  as  they  accumulated. 

At  the  shrines  of  art,  science,  literature  and 
scholarship  he  worshipped  as  an  adept,  yet  to 
no  dogmas  would  he  subscribe,  nor  yield  to 
prejudices.  The  wonder  and  charm  of  his 
versatility  was  that  it  gave  no  impression  of 
feverish  willingness,  no  sense  of  unnatural 

[  29  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

strain.  He  passed  easily  and  joyously  from 
one  of  his  manifold  intellectual  activities  to  an 
other  without  apparent  fatigue  and  with  a 
temper  of  imperturbable  sweetness. 

Let  me  close  this  brief  sketch  of  one  who 
showed  so  well  the  assurance  of  genius,  by  re 
calling  a  walk  with  him  amid  the  ruins  of  the 
Acropolis  at  Athens.  It  had  been  one  of  those 
typical  midwinter  days  of  the  JEgean  coasts 
when  the  sunlight  lies  lovingly  upon  the  altars 
of  ancient  Greece  and  the  shadows  of  the  cy 
press  trees  speak  of  her  modern  sorrows.  Wan 
dering  amongst  some  stone-work,  tumbled  by 
cannon  shot  in  the  war  with  Turkey,  the  poet 
chanced  to  see,  peering  at  him  from  beneath  a 
broken  capital,  the  skull  of  a  Turk.  Seating 
himself  upon  a  fallen  column  and  using  the 
white  surface  of  the  cranium  as  his  tablet,  he 
wrote,  without  effort  or  erasure,  the  noted 
"Dedication  to  a  Skull,"  which  ends  with  the 
lines : 

Call  not  me  a  thing  of  the  clod! 

The  Parthenon  owned  no  such  plan! 
Man  made  that  temple  for  a  God, 

God  made  these  temples  for  a  man! 

Handing  to  me  the  skull  thus  inscribed  (I 
had  it  mounted  as  a  vase)  he  picked  up  a  piece 

[  30] 


THE    ASSURANCE     OF     GENIUS 

of  stone,  some  fragment  cast  down  by  time  or 
siege  from  the  Acropolis,  and  prompted  doubt 
less  by  its  shape,  proceeded  to  carve  it  with 
the  chisel  in  a  pocket  knife,  producing  in  little 
time  an  excellent  replica  of  the  helmeted  head 
of  Pallas  Athene.  As  the  shadows  of  evening 
lengthened  he  sketched,  upon  the  fly-leaf  of  a 
book,  the  temple-crowned  Acropolis,  and  at  a 
later  date,  transformed  this  sketch  into  a  large 
oil-painting,  a  masterful  and  sympathetic  ren 
dering  of  the  scene,  with  the  dark  foreground 
of  modern  Greece  contrasted  against  the  white 
and  ghostly  temples  enthroned  upon  the  rock 
of  the  Acropolis,  canopied  by  a  cloud-flecked 
sky  from  which  the  silver  orb  of  Diana  peeped 
in  watchful  guidance  of  her  daughters.  No  es 
todo  plata  que  reluce.  Recently  I  sent  this 
picture  to  be  cleaned  and  the  dismayed  expert 
notified  me  that  the  moon  had  incontinently 
come  off  in  the  cleaning!  It  had  proved  to  be 
merely  a  torn  disc  of  white  paper  pasted  at  the 
edge  of  a  cloud,  some  after-thought  of  the 
artist  seeking  to  give  to  his  work  the  touch 
which  seemed  to  him  lacking.  Ah,  well;  the 
moon,  though  a  thing  of  beauty,  is  subject  to 
eclipse,  but  the  assurance  of  genius  is  a  joy 
forever. 

[  31  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


VI 
OUR   MAGIC    CARPETS 

Our  thoughts  are  boundless  as  our  souls  are  free. 

BYROH 

TO  each  of  us  at  birth  is  given  a  magic 
carpet,  swifter  and  more  wondrous  than 
any  described  by  Shahrazad.  On  the 
looms  of  thought  it  is  woven;  its  woof  is  spun 
from  memories,  its  warp  is  made  from  the  many- 
hued  skein  of  imagination.  Summoned  by  the 
mental  process  of  intent  or  by  some  uncon 
trolled  and  momentary  reminiscence  it  bears  us 
instantly  away.  Its  knowledge  of  all  paths  by 
land  and  sea  and  air  grows  with  our  own  learn 
ing  and  experiences,  yet  in  no  wise  is  it  bound 
by  limitations  save  the  retarding  weight  of  our 
own  doubts. 

No  frontiers  bar  its  passage;  no  distance 
daunts  it ;  nor  does  it  grant  us  time  to  consider 
the  marvel  of  its  speed  and  faithfulness.  We 
think  of  some  scene,  some  condition,  and 

[  32  ] 


OUR     MAGIC     CARPETS 


straightway  we  are  there,  environed  by  the 
colors,  sounds  and  movements  pertinent  to  the 
place.  What  is  not  true  to  the  circumstances 
of  our  quest  dies  upon  the  rushing  wind  of 
swift  passage,  for  our  magic  carpet  derives  its 
movement  from  a  thought  and  jettisons  all  that 
is  not  of  it. 

No  possession  in  life  is  more  gracious  to  each 
of  us  than  this.  It  acknowledges  neither  wealth 
nor  poverty.  It  obeys  the  bidding  of  the  cripple 
as  readily  as  the  summons  of  the  strong.  It  is 
the  unfailing  associate  of  childhood,  the  remind 
ful  comforter  of  old  age,  the  inexhaustible 
teacher  of  our  years  of  action.  How  else  should 
the  artist  sense  the  depths  of  his  unpainted 
canvas ;  or  the  sculptor  see  the  contours  of  his 
statue  in  the  rough-hewn  block  of  marble;  or 
the  dramatist  fill  his  empty  stage  with  living 
figures ;  or  the  novelist  witness  the  episodes  of 
his  unwritten  story;  or  the  historian  recall  the 
smoke  of  burning  cities  sacked  by  the  foe,  the 
smiling  landscape  of  prosperous  days,  the  clash 
and  havoc  of  war  and  the  solemn  conclaves  of 
peace.  Nay  more ;  the  artist,  sculptor,  drama 
tist,  novelist  and  historian  may  bear  us  to  the 
realms  of  their  conducting  thoughts.  They 
point  the  path  which  we  may  follow,  for  all  true 

[  33  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

works   of   art   are  their   own   sufficient   guide 
books. 

It  has  been  my  privilege  to  travel  thus  on 
carpets  magical  with  many  of  the  master  pilots 
of  my  time  in  the  fields  of  science,  literature, 
art  and  geographical  discovery.  The  late  Sir 
William  Crookes  used  to  bring  to  my  father's 
house  his  half  completed  inventions,  and  as  a 
boy,  my  soul  breathless  with  expectation,  I 
watched  him  perfect  his  radiometer  and  in  later 
years  those  delicate  instruments  which  wrested 
secrets  from  the  quiet  lips  of  Nature.  I  have 
sat  in  studios  whilst  some  of  the  notable  pic 
tures  of  the  age  were  painted,  such  as  "The 
Roll  Call"  by  Elizabeth  Thompson.  I  have 
assisted  in  the  organization  of  the  expeditions 
which  enabled  Sir  Henry  M.  Stanley  to  map 
the  heart  of  Africa,  and  the  late  George  Smith 
to  excavate  the  buried  cities  of  Assyria.  I 
have  been  an  intimate  witness  of  the  writing  of 
many  famous  books,  like  The  Light  of  Asia, 
which  today  enrich  our  libraries.  And  ever  at 
a  sign  from  the  master  of  tool,  brush,  pencil  or 
pen,  as  the  mahout  wields  his  ankus,  our  magic 
carpets  have  borne  us  on  the  winds  of  science 
beyond  the  murky  atmospheres  of  earth  to  the 
sun-starred  meadows  of  light,  or  carried  us 

[  34  ] 


OUR     MAGIC     CARPETS 


from  peaceful  studios  to  the  grim  battlefields 
of  the  Crimea,  or  transformed  the  sombre  fur 
nishings  of  a  London  home  to  the  green  and 
golden  sward  beneath  the  Bodi  tree  where  sat 
the  supreme  and  gentle  Teacher  of  India. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  that  I 
can  recall  of  the  mind  being,  in  Milton's  phrase, 
"its  own  place,"  was  evidenced  for  me  in  the 
writing  of  The  Voyage  of  Ithobal,  by  the  late 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold.  That  book,  it  will  be  re 
membered,  describes  in  verse  the  adventures  of 
certain  Phoenicians  who  undertook,  at  the  com 
mand  of  Pharoah  Neco  of  Egypt,  the  first  re 
corded  circumnavigation  of  Africa.  The 
account  is  given  by  Herodotus  who  states,  in 
his  terse,  quaint  style,  that  "the  Phoenicians, 
setting  out  from  the  Red  Sea,  navigated  the 
Southern  Sea;  when  autumn  came,  they  went 
ashore  and  sowed  the  land,  by  whatever  part 
of  Libya  they  happened  to  be  sailing,  and 
waited  for  the  harvest;  and  having  reaped  the 
corn,  they  put  to  sea  again.  When  two  years 
had  thus  passed,  in  the  third,  having  doubled 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  they  arrived  in  Egypt, 
and  related  that  as  they  sailed  round  Libya, 
they  had  the  Sun  on  their  right  hand." 

Of  this  voyage,  the  poet  builds  the  detailed 

[35  ] 


THE    SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

story.  It  was  his  last  work  and  was  dictated 
when  illness  had  rendered  him  totally  blind. 
Nevertheless,  with  the  inward  vision  which  is 
ours  when  we  travel  upon  our  magic  carpets, 
he  describes  the  preparation  of  the  expedition 
on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea  and  follows  its 
fortunes  around  the  continent  of  mystery  until 
the  worn  oars  of  his  Phoenician  sailors  are 
shipped  and  the  ragged  sails  of  their  boats  flap 
triumphant  at  the  Nile's  mouth.  Each  fea 
ture  of  the  immense  coast  line  is  explored ;  the 
different  tribes  are  accurately  portrayed ;  their 
greetings  to  the  mariners  are  interpreted  from 
the  viewpoint  of  those  who  worshipped  Baal 
and  Astarte;  strange  animals  and  birds  move 
across  the  pages  of  the  poem ;  and  all  its  world 
is  clothed  with  the  variant  verdure  of  Africa. 
It  is  not  so  much  a  book  as  a  canvas  painted 
with  words ;  a  changeful  scape  of  land  and  sea, 
an  epitome  of  African  color,  sound  and  life. 

So  true  is  its  sympathy  with  the  setting  that 
when  Sir  Henry  M.  Stanley  quietly  entered 
the  library  of  the  blind  poet  and  heard  him 
dictating  some  passages  descriptive  of  the 
Swahili  coast,  he  laid  his  hand  upon  the 
shoulder  of  his  friend  and  said,  "Arnold,  it  is 
you,  not  I,  who  know  that  land  so  well,"  and 

[  36  ] 


OUR     MAGIC      CARPETS 


the  poet  answered  as  simply,  "Stanley,  I  have 
learned  that  the  eyes  are  keenest  when  they 
look  within." 

Oh,  Shahrazad,  gracious  guide  in  many  an 
enchanted  land,  boast  not  of  your  magic 
carpets,  for  each  of  us  possesses  one. 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

VII 

THE  ASCENSION  OF  SONG 

Now  the   daughters   of   Zeus   and   Mnemosyne   were 
nine  and  ever  they  sing  of  the  deeds  of  gods  and  men. 

HESIOD 

Then  sang  Deborah, 

I  will  sing  praises  unto  the  Lord  God  of  Israel, 

Before  whom  the  earth  trembled,  yea,  trembled  when  He 

went'st  forth. 

The  heavens  and  the  clouds  dropped  water; 
And  Kishon,  the  ancient  river  Kishon,  swept  them  away; 
Even  the  kings  who  fought  by  the  waters  of  Megiddo. 
Their  horsehoofs  were  broken  by  means  of  the  prancings. 
Oh  my  soul,  Thou  hast  trodden  down  strength. 
Awake,  awake,  Deborah,  awake,  awake, 
Utter  'a  Song. 

CAN  we  not  still  hear  the  song  of  Deborah, 
as,  forgetting  bodily  weariness   in  her 
elation,  she  leads  the  cymbal  players  be 
fore  her  battle-torn  and  victorious  Israelites? 
Who  would  seek  the  faint  emotions  which,  like 
will-o'-the-wisps,   flicker    o'er   the    shallows    of 
modern  fiction,  when  from  the  cliffs   of  time 
reverberate  echoes  of  episodes  enshrined  in  song 
such  as  hers ;  songs  which  have  stirred,  and  for 
aeons  will  stir,  the  imagination  of  nations? 

[  38  ] 


THE     ASCENSION     OF     SONG 

For  had  not  Jabin,  who  reigned  in  Hazor, 
threatened  to  make  a  wilderness  of  Israel,  and 
to  that  end  had  sent  the  captain  of  his  hosts, 
one  Sisera,  with  nine  hundred  chariots  of  iron 
and  warriors  in  number  as  the  sands  of  the  sea? 
Dire  was  the  need  of  the  hour,  yet  whither 
should  Israel  turn? 

And  one  said,  "There  is  a  woman  liveth  under 
the  palm-tree  by  Ramah  and  her  name  is 
Deborah.  Let  us  go  unto  her.  Peradventure 
she  shall  aid  us,  for  she  hath  strange  knowledge 
of  the  hearts  of  men."  So  they  sent  unto 
Deborah  and  she  arranged  with  Barak  an  am 
buscade  by  the  stony  little  stream  of  Kishon. 
And,  behold,  a  storm  arose  whereby  Kishon  was 
turned  into  a  raging  torrent,  which  swept  away 
the  nine  hundred  chariots  of  iron  and  their 
horsemen  and  the  men-at-arms  of  Jabin.  And 
it  came  to  pass  that  Sisera,  the  mighty  captain, 
fled  on  foot  from  the  lost  battle  to  the  tent  of 
one  Heber,  a  nomad  of  the  Kenite  tribe.  Now 
Heber  was  absent  that  day  attentive  to  the 
bleatings  of  his  flocks,  seeking  precarious 
grazing  in  these  unsettled  times ;  and  Jael,  his 
wife,  was  in  charge  of  his  honour  and  his  tent. 
And  Jael  met  the  fleeing  Sisera  and  proffered 
him  guesthood,  giving  him,  in  token  of  good 

[39  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

faith,  as  is  the  custom  of  the  desert,  milk  from 
her  own  hands  and  butter  in  a  lordly  dish  and 
she  set  a  mantle  over  him;  and,  to  the  eternal 
shame  of  all  the  children  of  Ishmael,  she  slew 
him  even  as  he  slept. 

So  Deborah  led  down  from  the  mountain  side 
her  horde  of  wild  warriors.  Slow  was  their 
progress  for  they  were  burdened  with  much 
booty,  "yea,  to  every  man  a  damsel  or  two  and 
a  prey  of  divers  colours  of  needlework  on  both 
sides,  meet  for  the  necks  of  them  that  take  the 
spoil."  And  all  the  air  was  filled  with  the 
rumbling  of  the  dying  storm,  with  the  neighing 
of  horses,  with  the  lowing  of  cattle,  with  the 
discordance  of  musical  instruments,  with  the 
shouting  of  the  victors ;  whilst  in  the  van,  heard 
above  the  hubbub,  like  the  motif  of  a  frenzied 
orchestra,  a  woman  crieth, 

The  earth  trembled  before  Thee. 

The  clouds  dropped  water. 

Their  horsehoofs  were  broken  by  means  of  the  prancings. 

Oh,  my  soul,  awake, 

Awake,  awake,  Deborah, 

Utter  thy  Song. 

In  the  galaxy  of  poesy  thy  song,  Deborah, 
and  such  as  thine,  shall  live.  For  is  not  the 
importance  of  song  in  the  national  and  social 

[  40  ] 


THE     ASCENSION     OF     SONG 

life  of  all  races  attested  by  the  chroniclers  of 
every  history.  It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  we 
care  not  who  makes  the  laws  of  a  land  provided 
we  may  make  its  songs.  The  former  are  merely 
the  dress  of  the  body,  changing  with  country 
and  season ;  the  latter  are  the  enduring  memory, 
the  beating  heart  and  the  nervous  system. 
Countless  thousands  of  men  adjust  their  collars 
each  morning  with  an  assurance  to  the  listening 
air  that  for  "Bonnie  Annie  Laurie"  they  would 
lay  them  down  and  die ;  yet  how  few  would  ven 
ture  to  assist  the  recalcitrant  collar  stud  with 
a  quotation  from  Chitty  on  contracts  or  Black- 
stone's  commentaries?  If  an  adage  may  be  said 
to  be  the  wisdom  of  one  on  the  lips  of  many,  do 
not  these  popular  lyrics  spring  from  our  hearts 
with  the  sentiments  and  sympathies  not  only 
of  our  race  but  in  large  measure  of  mankind. 
Ofttimes  they  come  charged  with  whispers  to 
our  subconscious  selves,  fraught  with  associa 
tions  which  transform  the  words  to  beads  of  a 
musical  rosary,  tinted  with  scenic  recollections 
that  enframe  the  song,  chorused  with  voices  of 
another  life,  scented  with  perfumes  lingering 
amid  the  dried  rose  leaves  of  memory. 

Perhaps  a  personal  reminiscence  serving  as 
example  may  be  forgiven.     When  I  was  about 

[  41   ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

twelve  years  old  I  possessed  a  voice  so  notable 
that  it  inflicted  upon  me  the  penalty  of  singing 
the  solos  to  anthems  in  my  college  chapel  and 
elsewhere.  So  befell  it  that  I  was  in  attendance 
at  a  certain  stately  Church  of  England  when 
the  bishop  of  the  diocese  was  present  and  a 
congregation  of  over  a  thousand  persons  had 
gathered.  The  anthem  chosen  for  the  occasion 
was  "As  pants  the  hart  for  cooling  streams  so 
longeth  my  soul  for  Thee,  oh,  God" ;  and  in  the 
immense  choir  I  stood,  a  lonely  little  boy,  to 
sing  the  magnificent  solo  of  that  anthem. 

I  remember,  as  though  it  were  yesterday,  how 
the  organ  poured  upon  the  air  the  power  and 
grace  of  its  theme,  like  the  sweep  of  a  cascade 
fretted  with  sparkling  spray.  Then  came  the 
moment  for  my  solo,  and  another  world  claimed 
me.  I  forgot  the  church,  the  bishop,  the  people 
and  myself.  I  could  only  think  of  that  thirsty 
hart  and  its  unquenchable  longing.  Into  my 
interpretation  of  the  appeal  I  flung  my  soul 
and,  all  unwitting  of  the  earth,  I  watched  my 
treble  pass  upwards  amid  the  pillars  and 
rafters  of  the  church  in  a  mist  of  prayer,  as  it 
were  the  ascending  smoke  of  Abel's  altar. 
"Like  as  the  hart  desireth  —  desireth  —  de- 
sireth  the  water  brooks."  High  and  higher  sped 

[  42  ] 


THE     ASCENSION     OF     SONG 

in  boyish  treble  the  words,  mystic,  earnest,  vis 
ible;  until,  suddenly,  I  became  aware  that  the 
bass-solo  had  joined  me;  that  his  message  had 
climbed  to  mine;  that  his  grand  voice  outstrid- 
ing  the  pealing  notes  of  the  organ,  had  hurled 
aloft  the  words  "So  longeth  —  longeth  — 
longeth  my  soul  after  Thee,  oh,  God."  And 
still  singing,  well-nigh  unconsciously,  I  watched 
the  two  voices  mingle,  the  boy's  and  the  man's, 
and  the  two  songs  entwine  in  a  garland  of  vocal 
roses.  Up,  up,  up  beyond  the  carven  capitals 
of  the  nave,  beyond  the  ancient  rafters  and  the 
groined  roof;  out,  out,  out  into  the  blue  sky 
where  the  summer  clouds  joined  their  lacery  to 
the  moving  spiral  of  our  song ;  upward  and  on 
ward  sped  the  olden  message,  the  ache  of  the 
heart  for  utmost  knowledge,  essenced  in  prayer, 
winged  with  music,  buoyed  by  the  organ  tones, 
purged  by  space  and  time  until  it  merged  in  the 
myriad  sympathetic  vibrations  which  tremble 
as  a  glory  around  the  ultimate  source  of 
thought.  I  am  no  musician ;  but,  in  truth,  I 
think  that  Polyhymnia,  the  Muse  of  sacred 
song,  stooped  down  that  day  from  her  bowers 
on  Mount  Olympus  and  kissed  an  earthly  boy. 
On  another  occasion  "The  Three  Fishers" 
crystallized  for  me  from  vague  solutions  of  the 

C  43  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

mind  into  a  gem  laden  with  hidden  lights.  It 
was  a  moonlight  night  at  Cromer  on  the  east 
coast  of  England.  The  fishing  boats  of  that 
quaint  harbour  were  about  to  put  forth  into 
the  North  Sea,  and  the  ceremony  of  blessing 
the  fleet,  alas  now  falling  into  disuse,  was  to  be 
performed.  The  pastor  of  the  little  port,  for 
in  those  days  Cromer  was  but  a  humble  place, 
stood  at  the  end  of  the  jetty  and  pronounced 
a  few  brave  and  simple  words,  such  as  men 
value  at  the  edge  of  dangerous  callings.  Then 
in  the  hush  of  the  night,  with  only  the  ripple  of 
the  sea  for  accompaniment,  a  lady,  famous  in 
the  realms  of  song,  sang  "The  Three  Fishers." 
Out,  far  out  upon  the  waters  floated  her  lovely 
voice.  The  brown  sails  of  the  fishing  smacks, 
rocking  on  the  bosom  of  the  awaiting  tide, 
curtesied  to  its  phrasings.  The  moon  tarried 
amid  her  attendant  clouds.  The  sea  birds 
glided  noiselessly  upon  their  wings  lest  any  mo 
tion  of  theirs  should  mar  the  grace  of  her,  who 

Uttered  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song, 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music. 

Now    and    again    some    song,    like    a    divine 
tuning  note,  awakes  the  souls  of  men.     None 

[   44  ] 


THE    ASCENSION     OF     SONG 

may  preknow  the  fortunate  hour  or  the  elected 
means.  How  should  Ruget  de  Lisle  have  fore 
seen  the  destiny  of  his  "Chant  de  Guerre,"  as 
it  was  first  named;  the  "Marseillaise"  as  it  is 
called  today.  The  story  goes  that  he  wrote 
both  the  words  and  the  air  in  a  fit  of  patriotic 
excitement  after  a  public  dinner,  and  well  may 
this  be  so,  for  the  inadequacy  and  bombast  of 
the  words  are  only  saved  from  merited  extinc 
tion  by  the  stirring  melody  and  its  inspired 
adaptation  to  the  service  of  its  theme.  Yet  to 
this  martial  tune  the  heart  of  a  noble  nation 
has  throbbed  for  a  century,  and  millions  of  men 
have  marched  to  death  as  to  the  dawn  of  day. 

It  seems  to  be  a  psychological  law  that  great 
moments  in  the  lives  of  nations  beget  notable 
and  inspiring  songs.  So  in  the  American  Civil 
War,  out  of  the  flame  and  agonies  of  that  time 
was  born  the  superb  battle  hymn,  "Mine  eyes 
have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord." 
So  also  in  the  stress  and  tension  of  the  Boer 
war,  when  the  pent  thoughts  of  a  race,  which 
is  readily  moved  inwardly  but  outwardly  is  in 
flexible  in  self  control,  sought  for  expression, 
suddenly  "airy  and  excellent  the  proem  came" 
in  Kipling's  Recessional,  "Lest  We  Forget." 
In  the  same  spirit  America  produced  during 

[  45  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

the  late  war  the  unmellifluous  strain  "Over 
There,"  which,  although  hardly  of  an  enduring 
type,  unquestionably  played  a  not  inconsider 
able  part  in  drawing  to  her  banners  the  earnest 
service  of  her  manhood  and  womanhood. 

Considered  in  its  evolution  from  humble  be 
ginnings  to  beatitude,  perhaps  the  most  re 
markable  of  recent  songs  is  "Tipperary,"  which 
in  a  few  years  passed  from  its  inception  as  a 
music-hall  ditty  to  the  abode  of  the  gods.  In 
its  words  and  air  it  belongs  to  the  lowliest  sys 
tem  of  things.  Its  generic  place  might  be 
classed  amongst  the  invertebrates  of  music, 
having  relationship  with  the  sponges  of  the 
Archean  rocks  or  with  the  foraminifera ;  yet 
in  its  swift  transition  it  has  attained  to  a  spirit 
ual  sphere  whence  its  echoes  must  bring  tears 
to  the  eyes  of  angels.  In  the  red  fields  of  the 
great  struggle  it  grew  from  nothingness  to  sub 
limity.  To  its  tones  millions  of  brave  men 
gathered  from  lands  far  scattered  amid  the 
seven  seas  and  marched  at  its  bidding  to  hard 
ships,  wounds  and  death,  upholding  the  torches 
of  Light  against  the  sinister  flags  of  Darkness. 
Today  none  may  hear  it  with  covered  head,  for 
it  has  passed  in  the  golden  aura  of  its  associa 
tions  into  the  glory  and  the  Ascension  of  Song. 

[  46  ] 


RHEIMS      CATHEDRAL 


VIII 
RHEIMS  CATHEDRAL 

Amid  the  dust  and  falling  debris  the  wounded  were 
hastily  removed  from  the  stricken  Cathedral. 

WAK  NEWS 

A  MORN  in  Spring ; 

Lifting  the  mists  of  sleep  from  silent  towers 
Where    Clovis,    grim,    implacable,    was 

crowned 

King  of  the  Franks.    Its  young  light  showers 
A    rain    of    golden   beams    on    littered 

ground, 

On  arch  uncarved,  on  column  rising  high 
To  swelling  roof  where  master-masons  cry 

Commands   to   busy  builders;   and   the 
place 

Echoes  Christ's  creed 
And  Labour's  need 

"Into  Thy  hands,  O  God!  so  may  our 
work  find  grace." 

A  Summer's  Noon, 

Paints     with     its     glowing    brush     embattled 
Rheims ; 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

Gilding  the  armed  hosts,  whose  banners 

proud 
Herald  the  Maid  of  Arc.    Her  spirit  seems 

To  fall  in  sunlight  o'er  the  acclaiming 

crowd 

Bordering  her  path  to  where,  on  either  hand, 
The  Chivalry  and  Church  of  France  now  stand, 
Tend'ring  to  Charles  a  crown ;  to  God 
a  race; 

While  choristers  intone 
"Not  us ;  To  Thee  alone ; 
Into  Thy  hands,  O  God!  so  may  our 
land  find  grace." 


An  Eve  in  Autumn, 

Sets  with  crimson  stains  on  clouding  sky, 
Cast  not  by  sun  but  fires  which  tell 
The  wrath  and  wrack  of  men.    Wild  lightnings 

fly, 

Bringing  their  thunders  in  the  bursting 

shells, 
Which  scatter  death ;  e'en  to  the  wounded  'mid 

the  straw 

Spread  in  God's  sanctuary  —  ruined,  resonant 
with  war, 

[  48  ] 


BHEIMS      CATHEDRAL, 


Its    altars    desolate,    save    where,    with 
lifted  face, 

One  to  death  near 
Murmurs  in  prayer, 
"Into  Thy  hands,  O  God!  so  may  our 
souls  find  grace." 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


IX 

THE  OTHER  SIDE  OF  THE  MOON 

As  out  of  the  crucifixion  of  One  arose  Mary,  so  out 
of  the  crucifixion  of  all  the  world  has  arisen  all  Woman 
hood. 

IF  truth  hides  in  the  cynicism  that  the  part 
of  Woman  is  to  inspire  Man  with  ideals  and 
then  prevent  him  from  carrying  them  out, 
it  might  be  urged  that  he  never  wholly  compre 
hends  his  teacher.    As  the  sons  of  Ammon,  men 
circle  their  father's   golden  throne  each  year 
and  learn  his  behests  in  the  glare  of  day;  but 
long  time  agone,  to  the  daughters  of  Isis,  their 
goddess-mother  whispered  her  counsel,  "Show 
to  man  only  the  half  of  thy  soul." 

Consistent  in  her  teaching  the  Moon  ex 
emplifies  her  advice  with  a  radiance  that  dazzles 
and  with  shadows  that  perplex.  No  object  in 
the  heavens  has  more  tenderly  encouraged 
man's  intellectual  growth  than  the  Moon,  nor 
is  there  one  that  has  left  him  enmeshed  in 
deeper  wonderments.  The  ancient  records  show 
intimacy  with  her  moods  but  seemingly  de- 

[  50  ] 


THE     OTHEB     SIDE     OF     THE     MOON 

spaired  of  exacter  definition.  The  astronomers 
of  those  distant  days  counted  her  steps  across 
the  clouds;  noted  her  ingoings  and  outgoings; 
calculated  the  period  which  it  occupied  her 
ladyship  to  turn  her  face  from  profile  and  from 
the  full  to  profile  again;  yet  withal  they  dubbed 
her  "the  orb  of  mystery."  Nevertheless  the 
data  thus  gained  served  men  through  number 
less  centuries  as  the  basis  of  their  calendar  and 
enabled  them  to  fix  their  civic  reckonings,  so 
that  they  called  her,  Me — the  Measurer.  And 
from  that  Sanskrit  name  were  evolved  the  deriv 
atives  mensis,  month,  and  Moon. 

From  palace  tower  and  temple  pylon,  the 
wise  men  of  the  East  nightly  watched  her  path 
across  the  spangled  floor  of  heaven,  and  like 
courtiers  at  the  passing  of  a  queen,  laid  their 
petitions  at  her  feet.  Nor  were  their  question 
ings  neglected,  for  down  the  silver  wires  of  her 
rays  came  many  a  gracious  answer  which  since 
has  crystallized  as  myth.  Yet  still  she  told  not 
all.  The  half  of  her  soul  was  hidden.  Why, 
asked  they,  was  her  waywardness  reflected  in 
mankind,  whilst  she,  the  mutable  yet  passion 
less,  showed  always  the  same  changeless  face? 
Nor  was  it  until  many  centuries  had  passed 
that  later  wise  men  learned  through  the  mazes 

[  51  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

of  complex  mathematics,  that  barely  six-tenths 
of  the  lunar  surface  has  ever  been  seen  by  us. 
Through  changes  and  moods  her  face  remains 
sphinx-like  in  immobility. 

To  what  purpose  also,  asked  they,  does  the 
Mother  of  the  Night  fill  the  minds  of  men  with 
strange  imaginings?  And  in  a  symbol  was  her 
answer  given.  Do  you  not  see  how  the  faint 
bow  of  the  new  Moon  suggests  its  future  full 
ness  by  a  delicate  rim  of  gold  traced  against 
the  sky;  completeness  of  desire  in  a  shining 
bubble.  So  builds  she  ever  in  our  hearts  the 
fairest  castles  of  light  which  seem  as  verities. 
Nor  until  a  Galileo  had  come  might  we  under 
stand  that  this  circlet  of  gold  is  not  of  her 
making,  but  of  ours.  It  is  due  to  the  light 
falling  from  the  Sun  on  the  Earth  and  reflected 
to  the  Moon.  Some  little  touch  of  pride  dwells 
here  for  us.  To  an  observer  on  the  Moon  our 
Earth  would  present  a  surface  more  than  ten 
times  as  large  as  the  Moon  offers,  so  that  the 
light  reflected  from  the  Earth  is  ten  times 
stronger  and  by  its  own  reflection  traces  this 
luminous  edge.  If  to  our  eyes  the  beauty  of 
the  silver  Moon  slipping  between  the  white 
clouds  passes  the  wit  of  a  Shelley  to  describe, 
may  we  imagine  what  our  Earth  in  its  tinted 

[  52  ] 


THE     OTHER     SIDE     OF     THE     MOON 

glory  would  seem  to  this  consort  of  the  giver  of 
light,  whom  we  have  chained  to  our  chariot  and 
call  our  satellite. 

And  again  these  wise  ones  of  the  ancient 
towers  sought  to  chart  the  wanderings  of  the 
Moon  across  the  star-marked  wilderness  of  sky. 
With  each  great  age  of  astronomy  the  calcu 
lations  approached  nearer  to  accuracy.  Asia 
handed  down  to  Greece  her  accumulated  ob 
servations,  so  that  Hipparchus  was  able  to 
work  out  that  which  is  ungallantly  known  as 
the  eccentricity  of  the  lunar  orbit.  Yet  he  was 
conscious  that  in  some  illusive  particulars  his 
deductions  were  incorrect.  Thereupon  Ptolemy 
took  up  the  threads  and  disentangled  the  celes 
tial  knot  still  further  by  discovering  what  is 
known  as  the  errors  of  evection.  Still,  with 
feminine  evasiveness,  the  pathway  of  the  Moon 
was  found  to  differ  from  its  computation.  So 
Tycho  Brahe  essayed  the  problem  and  gave  us 
the  lunar  variations ;  and  afterward  Newton 
and  Laplace  continued  the  long  investigations 
which  might  be  open  to  an  indictment  for  in 
delicacy  were  they  not  prompted  by  an  admira 
tion  so  respectful  and  sincere. 

Yet,  withal,  the  Moon  eludes  us.  We  know 
not  half  the  true  inwardness  of  this  sentinel, 

[  53  ] 


THE     SCHOOL,     OF     SYMPATHY 

silent  and  still.  We  describe  her  whims  with 
satisfied  precision,  but  like  the  radiant  coquette 
that  she  is,  she  smiles  behind  her  fan  of  clouds 
and  steeps  us  in  new  witcheries. 

It  used  to  be  thought  that  she  was  cold;  a 
thing  icy  and  without  heart.  Yet  here  also  we 
are  in  error,  for  it  would  seem  that  she  is  far 
otherwise ;  especially  in  her  sunny  moods.  Has 
not  a  learned  astronomer  written  that  under 
Stefan's  law  of  radiation  her  temperature  dur 
ing  a  certain  observation  must  have  been  nearly 
at  boiling  point  in  order  that  the  noted  amount 
of  heat  could  have  been  radiated?  Let  none, 
therefore,  wrong  the  Moon  again  by  calling  her 
cold,  for  her  attitude  towards  us,  if  not  in 
decorously  warm,  is  obviously  often  of  quite 
affectionate  temperature. 

Hail  then,  Orb  of  Motherhood;  Me,  the 
prompter  of  Akkadian  philosophies;  Astarte, 
guider  of  Phosnician  prows ;  Isis,  giver  of  the 
dawn;  Hathor,  conductress  from  the  Halls  of 
Amenti;  Diana  of  the  Ephesians;  Hail.  Too 
well  have  thy  daughters  of  Earth  sustained  thy 
teachings  —  ever  willing  to  be  partly  under 
stood,  unwilling  to  yield  more.  Through  un 
counted  ages  men  have  gathered  ideals  from 
thee  and  from  thy  daughters  and  have  warped 

[  54  ] 


THE     O  T  H  E  B,    SIDE     OF     THE     MOON 

and  wasted  them  for  lack  of  vision.  Be  these 
things  of  the  past.  As  ruined  fanes,  once  built 
in  pride  are  transformed  by  the  alchemy  of  thy 
silver  rays  into  palaces  beyond  our  utmost 
dreaming,  so  in  the  passion  of  our  wishfulness 
to  learn,  we  invoke  thee  to  transmute  our  errors 
into  grace,  and  to  shine  forgivingly  upon  the 
path  whereby  thy  daughters  and  thy  sons  must 
climb  together  to  the  eternal  light. 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


X 

WHEN  THE  WORLD  WAS  YOUNG 

And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  first  day. 

GENESIS 

AS  a  crystal  holds  a  drop  of  that  ocean 
upon  the  bosom  of  which  the  primal 
morning  dawned,  so  in  many  of  our 
fables  and  expressions  of  speech  we  recognize 
the  imprisoned  thought  of  our  far  ancestors. 
Large  was  their  sympathy  though  their  science 
small.  In  later  ages  the  pure  light  of  the  stars 
shines  in  the  Chaldean  epic  of  "Gilgamash"; 
the  forest-clad  gorges  of  the  Himalayas  are 
pictured  in  the  Vedantic  story;  the  dancing 
waves  fling  their  spray  across  the  pages  of  the 
Sagas;  and  all  Nature  finds  her  mirror  in  the 
myths  of  Greece.  But  to  the  earliest  races  of 
mankind  belonged  the  inestimable  privileges  of 
moulding  our  concepts  of  things,  material  and 
sublime;  and  time  has  set  the  moulding  beyond 
the  power  of  later  knowledge  to  wholly  alter. 
Creation  was  as  a  Sphinx,  propounding  riddles 
too  hard  for  answer,  and  measureless  was  the 

[  56  ] 


WHEN     THE     WOE.I/D     WAS     YOUNG 

sea  of  perplexity  whereon  man's  questing  ar 
gosies  voyaged  towards  an  understanding  of 
the  heavens  and  earth  and  all  that  therein  is. 
The  latent  riches  of  the  world  shimmered  as 
distant  shore  lines  in  the  haze  of  the  centuries 
to  come ;  the  energies  of  nature  were  as  fearful 
and  perilous  rocks;  the  elementary  facts  of 
modern  science  were  reefs  uncharted,  indicated 
only  by  the  white  surf  of  consequence  breaking 
restlessly  upon  shoals,  hidden  and  mysterious. 
Yet  how  splendid  the  opportunities  of  those 
who  moved  under  the  opening  eyelids  of  the 
world's  dawn;  how  intuitive  the  sympathy 
which  framed  their  picturesque,  if  erroneous, 
explanations  of  the  problems  which  confronted 
them ;  how  transcendent  their  discoveries.  They 
were  the  first  that  ever  burst  into  those  silent 
seas.  Slowly  their  immediate  needs,  limited  by 
environment,  but  spurred  by  each  achievement, 
prompted  progress.  Fire,  the  red  flower  which 
bites  those  who  would  pluck  it,  became  their 
servitor.  Speech,  struggling  from  the  inco 
herence  of  individual  effort  to  the  accepted 
utterance  of  the  tribe,  evolved  until  subtle 
gradations  of  tone  and  combination  resulted  in 
ever-widening  vocabulary.  Music  passed  from 
barbaric  sounds  to  ordered  rhythm  until  it 

[  57  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

caught  the  notes  of  Pan  and  joined  the  eternal 
anthem.  Art,  unkempt  in  its  infancy  as  the 
wild  sources  which  gave  it  birth,  ran  laughing 
amid  the  flowers  with  beauty  shining  in  its 
youthful  eyes.  And  all  life  yielded  its  lessons 
and  its  treasures  until,  from  experience  to  ex 
perience,  knowledge  came  though  wisdom 
lingered. 

Beyond  the  conquered  world  lay  realms  un 
conquerable;  the  wastes  of  the  firmament  and 
the  wonders  of  cosmic  force.  Appalling  must 
have  seemed  the  puzzles  presented  to  our 
earliest  thinkers  by  such  contrasting  phe 
nomena  as  the  fiery  pathway  of  the  sun  and  the 
cool  starflecked  sky  of  night ;  the  moving  terror 
of  the  lightning  and  the  stillness  of  the  frozen 
lake;  the  immobile  peaks  and  the  drifting 
clouds ;  the  sensuous  warmth  of  summer  and  the 
icy  shroud  of  winter;  the  wayward  moon  and 
the  whispers  of  the  rushing  winds.  Little  cause 
for  surprise  is  there  that  our  nursery  tales  and 
daily  phrases,  our  names  for  the  days  of  the 
week  and  for  the  dispositions  of  men  and 
women,  still  reflect  the  awe  with  which  our  for 
bears  worshipped  at  the  altars  of  the  unknown 
gods,  until  a  braver  vision  transmuted  the  base 
metal  of  dread  to  the  gold  of  a  more  promising, 

[  58  ] 


WHEN     THE     WORLD     WAS     YOUNG 

if  but  half-sensed  kinship  in  the  vast  scheme, 
seen  and  unseen,  of  the  universe. 

Doubtless  curiosity  has  ever  been  the  incen 
tive  from  observation  to  deduction,  but  always 
the  impatience  of  our  minds  outstrips  our 
knowledge.  Even  in  modern  science  this  rule 
holds  true,  as  when  the  writer  as  a  boy  watched 
Sir  William  Crooks  perfect  that  delicate  in 
strument,  the  radiometer,  and  heard  him  pro 
nounce  that  the  movement  of  its  fans,  balanced 
in  a  vacuum,  was  due  to  the  direct  transforma 
tion  of  light  into  motion.  Long  afterward  he 
knew  that  the  spinning  of  the  talc  vanes  was 
dependent  on  thermal  action;  and  from  this 
beginning  developed  the  theory  of  radiant 
matter,  or  matter  in  a  fourth  state,  which  led 
to  the  electronic  theory.  So  when  the  world 
was  young,  man,  fearless  of  error  and  seeking 
only  the  immediate  and  least  obscure  solution 
to  some  riddle  of  nature,  did  not  hesitate  to 
create  a  story  which  would  serve  to  explain  the 
matter  in  such  terms  as  his  own  mind  could 
compass.  The  ruder  his  degree  of  civilization 
the  simpler  would  be  its  form,  although  its 
grace  might  surpass  more  erudite  substitutes 
in  later  ages,  and  hold  our  remembering  speech 
in  thrall.  His  philosophy  had  at  once  the  dar- 

[  59  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

ing  and  the  limitations  of  youth.  Yet  if  it  was 
his  soul  that  spoke  then  his  words  should  live 
through  the  long  centuries  and  become  the 
mental  scenery  of  a  religion  or  the  folk  lore  of  a 
race. 

It  was  probably  in  this  way  that  the  skies 
were  mapped  in  times  of  yore  into  weird  con 
figurations  of  men,  women  and  beasts.  Races 
far  removed  from  each  other  recognized  the 
same  shapes  indicated  by  groups  of  stars. 
Within  historic  periods  the  wild  bushman  of 
Van  Diemens  Land  and  the  artistic  Greek  saw 
alike  the  dancing  feet  of  seven  sisters  in  the 
Pleiades ;  and,  though  so  far  apart  and  of  such 
different  culture,  both  the  Australian  and  the 
Hellene  thought  of  Castor  and  Pollux  as 
brothers.  The  North  American  Indians  dis 
cerned  the  shambling  gait  of  a  bear  in  the  con 
stellation  of  Ursus  Major;  and  most  of  the 
Zodiacal  signs  may  be  shown  to  have  existed 
under  their  present  designations,  or  in  kindred 
forms,  in  widely  separate  lands  for  untold  ages. 
Indeed  the  stars  have  been  the  source  of  many 
of  our  cherished  symbols  and  superstitions, 
which,  in  various  disguises,  press  in  with  the 
throng  of  customs  which  find  acceptance  at  our 
modern  festivals.  Not  always,  however,  would 

[  60  ] 


WHEN     THE      WOKLD     WAS     YOUNG 

it  be  wise  or  charitable  to  strip  the  mask  from 
off  the  wizened  features  of  some  of  these  per 
sisting  wraiths.  Unspeakable  crudities  and 
cruel  usages  of  long  forgotten  rites  lurk  in  the 
laughter  of  apparently  innocent  observances. 
With  some  of  these  it  is  safe  to  be  familiar, 
with  others  it  were  folly  to  be  wise.  It  might 
even  enhance  the  expectations  of  some  young 
lady  to  know  that  when  she  curtseys  to  the  new 
moon,  and  turns  thrice  around,  and  then  spits 
over  her  left  shoulder,  she  is  making  in  her 
curtseys  the  pre-Akkadian  prostrations  to  an 
ancient  form  of  Astarte,  the  Spirit  of  Fertility ; 
and  that  in  turning  thrice  she  rejoins  the  very 
questionable  dances  which  fair  ancestors  of  hers 
were  wont  to  indulge  in  around  the  altars  of 
the  Earth's  Fecundity;  and  that  in  spitting 
over  her  left  shoulder  she  adds  to  her  other 
graces  by  assisting  to  drive  away  the  demons 
which  supposedly  object  to  such  ceremonials. 

Most  of  these  remembrances  deal  with  the 
attributes  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  and  long  since 
have  retreated  to  the  ruder  regions  of  the  earth. 
In  some  northern  races  the  Moon  is  still  viewed 
as  a  girl  who  has  had  her  face  spotted  and 
scarred  by  hot  ashes  which  the  Sun,  in  a  violent 
temper,  threw  at  her.  Courtesy  forbids  that  we 

[  61  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

should  see  here  the  unhappy  suggestion  of  what 
might  happen  in  an  Eskimo  hut;  rather  may 
we  merely  note  an  incident  in  the  domestic  re 
lations  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  as  mates.  For  in 
the  earliest  religions  the  Sun  and  Moon  are 
always  personified  and  generally  viewed  as  the 
regnant  and  all-powerful  pair.  Their  manners, 
as  portrayed  in  myth,  may  be  royal  but  they 
are  not  invariably  models  for  mortals  to  copy, 
and  seldom  are  they  represented  as  having  lived 
happily  ever  after.  Amongst  the  indigenous 
tribes  of  India  the  pre-historic  story  ran  that 
the  Sun  married  the  Moon,  whose  beauty  was 
greater  than  all  her  rival  stars.  Alas,  she 
proved  faithless,  and  so  the  Sun  cut  her  up  into 
fragments,  only  relenting  when  he  saw  how 
lovely  was  the  quarter  Moon.  Thereupon  he 
allowed  her  to  build  herself  up  to  the  full,  and 
every  month  he  watches  with  pride  the  process 
and  then  in  anger  destroys  her  again. 

Nothing  visible  or  heard  or  vaguely  sensed 
in  heaven  or  earth  lacked  its  due  chronicle  in 
the  early  efforts  of  men  to  explain  the  environ 
ment  of  their  lives.  The  ceaseless  conflict  be 
tween  light  and  shadow;  the  destiny  of  all 
shown  daily  in  the  promise  of  dawn,  the 
strength  of  noon  and  the  decay  of  eve;  the 

[  62  ] 


WHEN     THE     WORLD     WAS     YOUNG 

colours  of  the  stars;  the  movements  of  the 
planets ;  the  terrors  induced  by  eclipses,  comets, 
and  meteorites ;  the  changeful  winds  and  the 
beneficence  of  the  rain;  the  flaming  arrows  of 
the  lightning  and  the  angry  voice  of  thunder; 
the  cold  of  winter  and  the  bounty  of  summer; 
the  mastery  of  fire  and  the  service  of  water ;  the 
marvel  of  birth  and  the  dread  of  death ;  all  find 
their  portion  in  these  endeavors  to  express  the 
complex  grammar  of  the  universe. 

Then  dawns  our  prosaic  age,  wherein  the 
fashion  is  to  snatch  the  veil  from  every  passing 
figure  in  the  pageantry  of  time.  Nothing  may 
escape  research;  no  illusion  may  claim  rever 
ence  by  reason  of  its  white  hair.  In  the  lab 
oratory  of  knowledge  the  book  of  Genesis  lies 
upon  the  dissecting  table;  the  atomic  theory 
has  shared  the  fate  dreaded  by  Lamb  for  the 
Equator  and  lost  respect ;  no  star  so  distant 
but  is  constrained  to  tell  its  composition.  Nor 
might  mythology  avoid  the  common  destiny, 
and  in  the  process  of  its  examination  many  a 
kingly  fable  has  been  dethroned;  stories  which 
seemingly  were  founded  upon  the  eternal  hills 
have  fallen  into  dust ;  nomenclature  and  adages 
have  proved  as  bright  and  enduring  as  gems. 
A  nursery  rhyme  may  transpire  to  have  had 

[  63  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

its  origin  in  some  celestial  truth  wrapped  in 
metaphor  when  the  world  was  in  its  swaddling 
clothes.  On  the  other  hand  some  honoured 
myth,  apparently  occult  in  its  teaching,  may 
have  no  greater  claim  to  our  respect  than  a 
passing  interest  in  its  historical  application  to 
the  election  of  a  Tribune  of  Rome  for  which 
occasion  it  was  invented. 

Much  that  glitters  in  tradition  is  made  of 
base  alloy,  yet  much  comes  down  to  us  weighted 
with  truth  from  days  misty  with  distance,  but, 
in  the  morning  of  our  world,  clear  as  the  eyes 
which  looked  into  the  wonders  of  heaven  and 
earth  and  read  their  messages  with  brave 
simplicity. 


KNOWLEDGE 


XI 
KNOWLEDGE 

THERE  is  an  hour  at  the  zenith  of  a 
summer's  day  when  Nature  rests.  Its 
law  is  silence;  beneath  its  spell  all  life 
is  hushed.  The  birds  rest  their  tuneful  throats, 
the  insects  fold  their  wings  of  tinted  velvet  and 
prismatic  gossamer,  the  glad  trees  sleep,  the 
rushes  at  the  margin  of  the  mere  forget  to  whis 
per  the  secrets  told  them  in  the  Grecian  tale. 

In  the  glades  of  a  primeval  wood  in  Northern 
Michigan,  wrapped  in  the  quiet  of  this  en 
chanted  hour,  the  shadows  were  bending  east 
ward.  From  the  brazier  of  warm  earth  an 
ascending  incense  from  flower  and  scented  fern 
filled  the  aisles  of  the  leafy  cathedral,  but  the 
worshippers  were  invisible  and  unheard  save 
for  the  murmur  of  small  winged  things  couched 
in  their  myriad  beds  of  green. 

In  such  environment  dull  seem  the  pages  of 
philosophy  and  the  volume  in  my  hand  grew 
heavy.  Its  lines  began  to  melt  and  merge  as 
the  variant  grasses  of  a  field  accept  one  pattern 
of  light  and  shadow  from  the  passing  clouds. 
But  the  mind  of  man  may  never  rest,  awake  or 

[  65  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

asleep,  and  struggling  to  concentrate  again 
upon  the  page  I  read,  "Now  Socrates  went  up 
to  Delphos  and  asked  of  the  oracle,  'Of 
all  knowledge  which  is  the  highest?'  And  the 
oracle  gave  answer,  'Know  thyself.' ' 

Straightway  my  thoughts  bore  me  to  the 
altars  of  the  Delphic  oracle  whereat  it  seemed 
that  I  was  witness  of  my  own  initiation  as  one 
who  sought  the  Knowledge  of  the  Self.  Thence 
voyaged  I  to  the  Nile  and  in  the  dark  recesses 
of  pyramid  and  pylon  heard  the  teachers  of 
Hermetic  writings  expound  to  the  living  the 
ritual  of  the  dead.  Thence  passed  I  to  the 
shrines  of  Indus,  where  white-robed  Brahmins 
intoned  the  Vedantic  law,  "All  knowledge  dwells 
in  the  knowledge  of  thyself." 

Some  priestly  voice,  lifted  in  fervor  and 
echoing  amongst  the  trees,  broke  then  my 
reveries,  and  I  saw  beneath  a  neighboring  fern 
where  the  golden  light  was  tangled  with  the 
drifting  shadows,  crouching  forms,  the  fairies 
of  our  youth,  petal-clad,  stamen-armed  and 
capped  with  floral  bells.  For  awhile  they 
watched  me.  Anon  one  of  the  bolder,  perchance 
a  chieftain  in  the  ranks  of  elfdom,  advanced 
and  cried,  "Obey  the  woodland  law."  And  my 
book  slipped  from  my  hand  and  I  slept. 

[  66] 


KNOWLEDGE 


Awake  in  Asphodel?     No  this  must  be 
Some  vale  of  fairyland,  or  Pan-loved  glade 

Where  Shepherd  pipes  to  Shepherdess  in  Arcady 
Under  the  willows;  and  the  light  and  shade 

Weave  golden  nets  around  their  feet 
To  trip  young  hearts  if  time  be  missed, 

Or  laughter's  music  stop. 

Could  one  but  meet 

The  dwellers  of  these  dales,  and  they  would  list, 
'Twere  well  to  ask  of  what  realms  are  these  lands, 

And  by  what  path  one  best  might  rise 
To  yonder  hill-top,  where  the  wreathing  mist 

Enwraps  a  mystic  city  built  as  an  eyrie 
Of  the  gods;  white-pinnacled  beneath  the  canopy 

Of  sky,  like  some  translucent  Din 
Perched  on  the  heights  in  Dante's  scheme 

Of  life's  embattlements. 

So  in  my  dream 
I  thought:  and,  with  unguided  steps  set  forth 

To  climb  the  steep,  encountering  many  a  fall 
On  treacherous  ground,  and  stumble  by  the  way, 

Till  where  the  slopes  had  end,  an  outer  wall 
Grafted  on  crag  and  precipice  bade  stay 

My  further  trespass. 

On  the  mountain  crest 
Betwixt  the  restless  earth  and  quiet  firmament 

Loomed  the  fair  city,  distant,  white, 
Veiling  the  stars  in  its  own  light 

As  Pharos  of  a  harbour — the  far  quest 
Of    proffered    peace;    the    peace    of    Knowledge    blest 

And  task  accomplished. 

[  67  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

Yet  were  my  steps 
Stayed  by  the  circuit  of  its  walls, 

Fivefold  and  separate,  rings  of  stone 
Winding  implacable,  immense,  alone, 

Conjoint  in  purpose;  massive  bands 
Forged  on  the  mountain's  brow  by  God's  own  hands 

To  be  its  diadem. 

Void  of  fault, 
In  grim  alignment  ranged  the  mighty  walls, 

Towered  and  buttressed  to  withstand  assault 
By  storm  or  man,  or  Time, 

That  silent  conqueror,  who  plans  with  Fate, 
Using  for  arms  the  sunbeam  and  night's  rime 

The  heat  and  hurricane,  the  patterned-lace 
Of  dew,  summoning  from  space 

The  tireless  legions  of  his  Djins 
To  fashion  ruins  for  his  chair  of  state; 

His  sceptre  swaying  elements;  his  robe  the  winds; 
His  ministers  the  hours,  whose  breath 

Was  theirs  unborn,  passing  undying  into  death. 

And  I  did  mark 
That  in  the  circuit  of  each  stony  zone 

A  single  gate  was  set,  like  Cyclop's  eye, 
Pond'rous  with  brazen  plates  which  shone 

Red  in  the  fading  light; 
Their  sentinel  Eternity. 

None  there  was  to  swing 
The  gates  of  Knowledge  open,  and  my  call 
Echoed  from  frieze  and  bastion,  turret  and  wall, 

Peopling  the  silence  with  voices  answering, 
"Ask  in  thine  self,  there  is  no  other 

Entering  in." 

[  68  ] 


BEGINNING      OUS     YEAH 


Life  is  not  dated  merely  by  years.    Events  are  some 
times  the  best  calendars. — BEACONSFDSIJ). 

SWEET  are  the  uses  of  anniversaries. 
Life  is  milestoned  with  these  recurring 
dates  which  claim,  in  passing,  a  sigh,  a 
smile,  a  thought  of  pride,  a  gleam  of  hope. 
They  serve  to  draw  our  attention  to  the  distance 
traveled,  bidding  us  forget  our  weariness  and 
gaze  with  courage  upon  the  heights  ahead. 
Some  of  these  milestones  are  off  the  beaten  road 
and  are  encountered  only  in  the  strayings  of 
the  individual.  They  belong  to  our  personal 
calendars.  Where  they  lie  in  the  shadows  of 
time  they  are  weatherworn,  o'ergrown  with  the 
lichens  of  years,  screened  by  tangled  growths  of 
ferns  and  grasses,  bowered  in  flowers  strewn  by 
the  forgiving  hands  of  God  upon  our  memories 
that  sleep.  Their  inscriptions  are  difficult  to 
decipher.  Others  that  stand  out  in  the  full 
glare  of  day  and  the  dusty  spacings  of  the 
wider  path  are  clear,  too  clear  perchance,  as 

[  69  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

though  they  found  renewed  engraving  from  the 
eyes  of  the  heart. 

Most  of  the  notable  milestones  of  time,  how 
ever,  are  for  the  guidance  of  all ;  and  insistently 
ask  notice  from  the  hurrying  crowd  of  hu 
manity.  Of  these  none  proffer  wiser  counsel 
than  the  festival  of  the  new  year,  radiating  to 
the  minds  of  all  an  impulse  towards  universal 
good  will.  From  its  incised  face,  white  with 
the  light  of  grace,  rays  beat  upon  our  lives, 
which  lift  to  heaven  wreathing  clouds  of 
thoughts  enwrapping  the  world  in  an  atmos 
phere  of  kindness,  flecked  with  tear-laden 
clouds.  If  thoughts  were  visible,  how  complex 
would  seem  the  maze  of  mental  messages  pro 
jected  at  the  close  of  each  year. 

Yet  rightly  considered  there  is  little  reason 
to  adopt  a  fixed  date  for  the  expression  of  good 
will  or  for  the  celebration  of  an  era  professing 
the  Christian  code  of  morals.  Our  year  can 
have  no  true  beginning  or  end.  Time,  as  gen 
erally  regarded,  consists  of  periods  defined  by 
expediency  —  hours,  days,  weeks,  months, 
years,  cycles  —  concentric  circles,  the  lesser 
contained  within  the  next  larger  measure.  And 
since  each  of  us  may  commence  the  drawing  of 
a  circle  at  whatsoever  distance  from  the  centre 


BEGINNING    OUR    YEAB 


seemeth  good,  it  follows  that  no  moment  of  time 
can  truly  possess  a  fixed  nature. 

Throughout  the  ages,  men  have  differed  in 
the  commencing  point  of  their  measurements  of 
time.  The  year  which  begins  for  us  on  the  first 
day  of  January  is  then  already  well  advanced 
in  some  countries,  while  in  others  the  people 
have  scarcely  begun  to  prepare  for  its  advent. 
With  more  justification  than  can  be  urged  in 
support  of  our  own  arrangement  of  the  cal 
endar,  the  Egyptians,  Phoenicians  and  Persians 
began  their  year  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  ap 
proximately  on  the  twenty-first  of  September. 
The  Greeks  moved  on  a  quarter  of  a  year  and 
commenced  the  drawing  of  their  annual  circle 
at  the  winter  solstice,  the  twenty-first  of  Decem 
ber.  About  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century 
before  Christ  it  occurred  to  the  Athenians  that 
it  would  be  more  comfortable  to  start  all  cal 
culations  from  the  middle  of  the  summer  rather 
than  the  middle  of  the  winter,  and  so,  by  a 
simple  process  of  law,  and  a  public  notice  in 
cised  on  a  rock  on  the  Martian  hill,  the  year 
found  itself  beginning  on  the  twenty-first  of 
June  instead  of  the  twenty-first  of  December. 

The  ancient  Romans  saw  no  just  cause  for 
this  change  and  with  the  obstinacy  of  their 

[71   ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

race  continued  to  celebrate  the  beginning  of  the 
year  on  the  twenty-first  of  December.  But  the 
accumulating  errors  in  their  calendar  gradually 
brought  about  such  confusion  in  the  official 
festivals  that  the  whole  matter  was  submitted 
to  the  astronomers  obeying  the  nod  of  Caesar, 
with  the  result  that  the  year  awoke  one  fine 
Roman  morning  to  find  itself  beginning  on  the 
first  day  of  January. 

Paganism  had  difficulty,  however,  in  trans 
ferring  its  lares  et  penates  to  its  successor,  and 
Christianity  required  over  fifteen  centuries  be 
fore  any  agreement  could  be  arrived  at  con 
cerning  the  day  when  the  New  Year  ought  to 
commence  its  career.  The  Christians  of  the 
early  centuries  stoutly  maintained  that  the  cor 
rect  date  was  the  twenty-fifth  of  March,  and 
very  valiantly,  if  a  little  impetuously,  they 
fought  in  street  and  temple  in  support  of  their 
theories.  The  idea  was  probably  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  Jewish  ecclesiastical  year  began 
with  the  spring  equinox,  and  thus  coincided 
with  the  story  of  the  gospels.  But  the  Saxons 
had  their  own  opinions  on  the  subject,  and  re 
solved  to  combine  the  celebration  of  the  birth 
of  Christ  with  the  birth  of  the  year,  observing 
both  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December. 


BEGINNING     OUR     YEAR 

At  the  Norman  conquest  of  England,  William 
the  Conqueror  was  crowned  on  the  first  of  Jan 
uary,  and  his  attendant  bishops,  aware  that  the 
emperors  of  Rome  had  observed  this  date  as 
New  Year's  day,  advised  its  adoption,  and  for 
several  centuries  it  was  adhered  to.  Later 
England  reverted  to  the  views  of  the  rest  of 
Christendom  and  commenced  her  official  New 
Year  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  March.  Still  later 
the  Gregorian  calendar  (1582)  rectified  the  an 
nual  measurement  of  time  and  restored  the  first 
of  January  to  its  position  as  the  New  Year's 
day.  This  edict  was  accepted  by  most  of  the 
Catholic  nations,  while  those  countries  which 
hold  to  the  Julian  calendar,  such  as  Russia,  and 
Greece,  still  celebrate  the  New  Year  twelve  days 
later  than  ourselves. 

Such  is  the  brief  but  complicated  story  of 
the  adoption  of  our  New  Year's  day.  Its 
graceful  custom  of  giving  gifts  on  that  date  has 
an  equally  far-reaching  history.  The  month  of 
January  takes  its  name  from  the  Latinium  god 
Janus,  to  whom  the  Romans  were  wont  to  offer 
sacrifices  and  gifts  at  the  festival  of  his  month, 
and  to  garland  his  statue  with  flowers.  Con 
sequently,  when  the  calendar  of  Caesar  enacted 
that  the  year  should  commence  on  the  day  which 

[  73  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OP     SYMPATHY 

had  for  centuries  been  devoted  to  the  feast  of 
Janus,  the  idea  of  giving  gifts  was  extended 
from  the  god  to  his  worshippers,  and  Romans 
bestowed  upon  their  friends  and  neighbors  small 
offerings  in  the  name  of  Janus.  These  gifts 
were  called  strena,  from  the  branches  of  vervain 
gathered  in  the  sacred  grove  of  Strenua,  the 
goddess  of  strength  —  a  word  still  surviving 
in  the  French  phrase  for  New  Year's  day,  le 
jour  d'etrennes. 

It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that,  save  for  com 
pliance  with  civic  and  clerical  conveniences, 
there  is  no  true  ending  or  beginning  to  a  year. 
Each  day  is  equally  entitled  to  be  viewed  as 
its  opening.  Nor  may  any  year  grow  old,  for 
it  is  ever  like  the  houris  of  paradise,  beauteous 
and  young,  offering  us  its  gifts  of  fuller  oppor 
tunity  and  endowed  with  the  eternal  benediction. 


THE     VEIL    OF     ASTARTE 


XIII 
THE   VEIL  OF   ASTARTE 

WITH  reflected  glory  from  the  Sun, 
made  red  by  the  mists  of  Earth,  the 
cult  of  Baal  encrimsoned  the  path 
whereby  men  stumbled  through  the  centuries  to 
nobler  philosophies ;  its  fierce  teachings  softened 
somewhat  by  the  willingness  of  man  to  woo  the 
favors  of  Astarte,  the  moon-goddess.  These 
balanced  opposites,  male  and  female,  strength 
and  grace,  are  derivatives  of  prehistoric  types 
of  worship ;  and  the  rayed  influence  of  their 
gold  and  silver  beams  lit  the  creeds  of  Egypt, 
Persia,  Crete,  Greece,  and  Rome.  Not  even  the 
Jewish  lore,  most  conservative  of  spiritual  con 
cepts,  could  avoid  the  thralldom  of  these  orbs 
of  heaven,  and  in  sympathy  with  the  times  of 
its  evolving  literature  we  find  Samson  (i.e. 
Shamesh,  the  Sun-god)  forfeiting  his  strength, 
made  manifest  in  the  luxuriant  locks  of  the 

[  75  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

solar  corona,  to  the  betraying  shears  of  De 
lilah  (i.e.  The  Twilight)  ;  while  nigh  to  the 
walls  of  the  sacred  Jerusalem  proudly  stood 
"the  high  places  which  Solomon,  the  king  of 
Israel,  had  builded  for  Astoreth." 

For  many  generations  the  study  of  the  Bible 
had  filled  western  minds  with  pictures  of  the 
magnificence  of  the  cults  and  achievements  of 
the  Babylonian  and  Phoenician  civilizations,  yet 
not  until  the  nineteenth  century  was  serious 
attention  given  to  resuscitating  the  evidences  of 
Chaldean  traditions.  Christianity  had  accepted 
the  Hebraic  writings  as  its  architectural  plan 
and  to  suggest  an  examination  of  the  founda 
tions  was  viewed  as  an  unnecessary  and  possibly 
adverse  criticism  of  the  structure.  Wherefore 
disturb  the  dust  of  ages?  Were  not  all  these 
matters  sufficiently  written  in  the  books  of  the 
kings  of  Israel? 

But  motion  is  the  permeating  and  encom 
passing  law  of  the  universe ;  else  The  Ultimate 
were  synonymous  with  stagnation  and  the  in 
finite  manifestations  of  an  afar  and  unthinkable 
Origin  would  be  as  green  scum  upon  the  idle 
mill  pond  of  creation.  So  came  it  to  pass  that 
despite  the  covert  protests  of  dogma  and  the 
objections  of  entrenched  orthodoxy  a  new-born 

[  76  ] 


THE     VEIL    OF     ASTAETE 

race  of  analytical  miners  delved  into  the  litera 
ture  of  the  Orient ;  and  the  excavators  of  dead 
empires  went  forth  to  dig.  Maspero  and  his 
compeers  uncovered  the  monuments  of  the 
Pharaohs,  while  Champollion,  guided  by  the 
trilingular  Rosetta  stone,  translated  the  hiero 
glyphs  with  which  they  were  emblazoned,  and 
bade  the  mummied  lips  of  Egypt  speak  their 
story.  Renan  analyzed  the  Semitic  traditions, 
Max  Miiller  and  others  traced  the  wanderings 
of  the  Aryans  and  the  origins  of  the  Vedic 
writings  ;  and  from  a  hundred  lands  the  children 
of  the  far-spread  West  retraced  the  centuries, 
coming  again  to  learn  from  the  Mother  East. 
Nor  might  the  buried  secrets  of  Western 
Asia  be  longer  ignored.  Amongst  the  pioneers 
of  this  renaissance  must  always  be  remembered 
Botta  and  Layard,  who  drew  the  sand-shrouds 
from  the  mound  graves  of  Kuyunjik  and  its 
buried  sisters,  and  showed  us  Assyria  in  her 
zenith.  Once  more  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates 
bore  upon  their  waters  the  effigies  of  Baby 
lonian  kings  who  erstwhile  were  as  myths  to  us. 
Strange  gods  of  Akkad  ascended  thrones  in  our 
museums,  from  whence  they  stared  with  stony 
eyes  at  modern  crowds  whose  knees  were  un 
bent  before  them,  while  children  undismayed, 

[  77  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

played  around  their  attendant  bulls  of  Bashan. 
Sheltered  from  London  fogs  beneath  glass 
cases,  and  labelled  like  novels  in  a  book-store, 
were  ranged  the  state  documents  and  libraries 
of  Assyrian  kings;  cylinders  and  tiles  and 
tablets  of  clay  delicately  incised  with  texts  in 
cuneiforms,  offering  us  the  contracts,  love 
letters,  laws,  epics,  maps,  and  astronomical  cal 
culations  written  in  days  when  Nimrud  "glo 
ried  and  drank  deep."  But,  like  the  dumb 
figures  of  the  gods  whom  they  invoked,  these 
clay  volumes  still  withheld  their  messages  from 
the  few  scholars  who  struggled  to  decipher  their 
forgotten  script. 

Of  those  who  sought  to  give  speech  again  to 
the  lifeless  tongue  of  Chaldea  none  were  more 
persistent  or  deserve  higher  place  than  George 
Smith.  As  far  back  as  1867  he  had  translated 
the  arrow-head  writing  on  a  Babylonian  tile 
which  mentioned  an  eclipse  of  the  Sun,  and  this 
fortunate  allusion  enabled  the  astronomers  to 
fix  the  date  of  the  inscription.  Again  in  1872 
he  achieved  universal  reputation  by  his  trans 
lation  of  the  Chaldean  account  of  the  Deluge. 
Portions  of  the  chronicle  were  missing,  but  its 
similarity  with  the  biblical  story  at  once 
awakened  general  interest,  and  the  art  of  print- 


THE     VEIL    OF     A  S  T  A  R  T  E 

ing  became  the  servitor  of  the  original  Chaldean 
scribe  by  reproducing  in  facsimile  his  incised 
tablets  in  nearly  every  magazine  and  paper  in 
the  world. 

The  writer  well  remembers  the  earnest  face 
and  short  strong  frame  of  George  Smith  as  he 
bent  over  some  engraved  tile  of  Sargon  or  Sen 
nacherib  at  the  British  Museum,  and  how  the 
grey  eyes  would  light  with  triumph  when  he 
had  pieced  together  the  broken  fragments  of  a 
difficult  line  and  found  his  interpretation  held 
reference  to  a  name  or  incident  of  historic  im 
portance.  At  such  moments  he  seemed  the  in 
carnated  spirit  of  an  Assyrian  handling  his 
materials  with  the  tenderness  and  exactitude 
which  men  are  wont  to  use  who  do  enduring 
things. 

The  new  field  of  literary  research  thus  opened 
so  appealed  to  the  scholarship  and  editorial  in 
stincts  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  that  in  January 
1873  he  arranged  with  George  Smith  that  the 
latter  should  take  charge  of  an  expedition  to 
excavate  the  mounds  of  Nimrud  near  the  city 
of  Mosul,  and  other  sites  in  ancient  Assyria, 
at  the  expense  of  the  Daily  Telegraph  of  Lon 
don.  Many  weeks  were  occupied  in  preparing 
this  expedition  and  providing  its  stores  and 

[  79  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

special  instruments  for  modern  methods  of  ex 
cavation.  When  all  was  ready  the  Turkish 
ambassador  in  London  informed  us,  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  that  it  would  be  essential  to  ob 
tain  a  firman  direct  from  the  Sultan,  since 
objections  had  been  raised  by  the  Sublime  Porte 
to  any  further  excavations  in  Mesopotamia. 
The  Turks  were  convinced  that  the  Giaour  had 
knowledge  of  vast  wealth  hidden  in  these 
mounds  of  rubbish  and  they  obdurately  refused 
to  allow  the  proposed  enterprise  to  go  forward 
unless  they  received  their  share  of  the  gold  and 
silver  to  be  unearthed. 

Nothing  daunted,  Edwin  Arnold  resolved  to 
travel  to  Constantinople  and  beard  the  viziers 
in  their  den.  The  journey  down  the  Danube 
and  through  the  Balkan  States  was  full  of  in 
terest,  and  after  those  interminable  delays 
which  are  the  salt  of  all  Oriental  negotiations, 
the  object  of  our  pilgrimage  was  accomplished. 
Whether  it  was  the  eloquence  of  the  poet,  or 
his  ability  as  a  man  of  affairs,  or  his  undertak 
ing  to  hand  over  to  the  Sublime  Porte  all  the 
gold  and  jewels  which  might  be  discovered 
matters  little  now ;  the  Sultan  relented  and  gave 
us  a  firman  to  dig  where  and  when  and  how  we 
liked,  with  special  clauses  to  the  effect  that  we 

[  80] 


THE     VEIL     OP     ASTAETE 

were  to  retain  all  the  stones  and  bricks  which 
our  spades  might  turn  out,  provided  that  the 
Sublime  Porte  should  retain  all  the  gold  and 
silver  discovered.  It  would  be  invidious  to  ask 
which  party  to  the  contract  was  conscious  of 
the  better  deal.  The  Sultan  smiled  triumph 
antly,  and  perhaps  a  little  in  pity,  for  doth 
not  the  Prophet  ordain  that  thou  shalt  be 
lenient  with  those  whom  Allah  hath  bereft  of 
reason? 

The  expedition  was  a  complete  success. 
Nineveh  and  other  famous  sites  had  their 
shrouds  of  sand  and  rubble  removed,  and 
Nemesis  in  the  shape  of  George  Smith  carried 
their  kings,  in  granite  and  basalt,  into  cap 
tivity  in  London.  The  missing  fragments  of 
the  Chaldean  story  of  the  Deluge  were  recov 
ered,  and  the  museums  of  Europe  and  America 
were  enriched  with  Babylonian  treasures  of  art 
and  literature.  Silver  and  gold  found  we  none, 
to  the  astonishment  and  discomfiture  of  the 
Sultan  and  his  wise  viziers,  but  such  as  the 
sands  of  time  had  to  give  us  they  gave  with 
generous  hands.  I  recall  that  amongst  the 
sifted  rubbish  filling  a  palace  passageway  was 
hiding  a  broken  ring  of  bronze  to  which  was 
still  attached  an  exquisite  cameo  of  Alexander 

[  81   ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

the  Great  cut  in  carnelian.  So  delicate  in  skill 
and  sympathetic  in  its  treatment  was  this  por 
trait  of  the  Macedonian  genius  that  my  ad 
miration  was  unbounded,  and  George  Smith  set 
it  upon  my  finger  saying,  "The  Greek  who  lost 
this  ring  would  wish  you  to  wear  it  for  him." 
For  the  sake  of  those  who  are  interested  in 
psychological  research,  I  may  permit  myself 
here  to  relate  the  last  meeting  of  Edwin  Arnold 
and  George  Smith.  During  the  summer  of  1878 
the  latter  was  continuing  his  excavations  at 
Kouyunjik  on  the  Tigris,  on  behalf  of  the 
British  Museum,  when  he  was  prostrated  by 
fever.  He  was  carried  to  Aleppo  where  he  died 
on  the  nineteenth  of  August.  Now  on  that  day 
Edwin  Arnold,  wholly  unaware  of  the  illness 
of  his  friend,  was  walking  down  the  Strand,  in 
London,  and  saw  George  Smith  a  few  feet  away 
from  him  looking  into  the  window  of  a  shop  at 
the  corner  of  Arundel  Street.  Stepping 
quickly  forward  to  express  his  surprise  and 
pleasure  at  the  unexpected  meeting,  he  observed 
his  friend  pass  round  the  corner  and  disappear. 
This  corner  of  the  shop  was  entirely  faced  with 
clear  glass  and  devoid  of  doors.  Consequently 
this  sudden  disappearance  of  the  absolutely  dis 
tinct  vision  was  as  inexplicable  as  had  been  its 

[  82  ] 


THE      VEIL      OF      ASTARTE 

appearance.  Nor  did  the  solution  of  the  prob 
lem  arrive  until  he  reached  home  and  found 
awaiting  him  there  a  telegraphic  message  stat 
ing  that  George  Smith  had  died  that  day  of 
fever  in  Aleppo. 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


XIV 
THE    BROOK   OF   REVELATIONS 

BESIDE  a  path  which  girds  a  hill 
In  Greece  lingers  an  ancient  shrine, 
Broken  and  desolate ;  its   altars  rifted, 
Scattered  with  dead  leaves,  drifted 
By  remembering  winds. 

Beneath  its  ruined  portal  an  old  man  rested, 

White  haired  and  wrinkled; 

Belike  some  Priest  forgot 
By  Death's  quiet  reapers  in  the  fields  of  Time. 

Or  Sage  whose  lot 

'Twas  to  serve  oracles. 

And,  as  chance  straws 
Upon  the  stream  of  life  meet  and  obey, 

In  sympathy,  the  call  which  draws 
Each  to  the  other,  I  left  the  modern  day 

Which  glared  upon  the  path,  and  passed 
To  where  the  old  man  sat  within  the  shade 

Of  centuries  dead. 

[  84  ] 


THE     BROOK     OF     REVELATIONS 

Our  greetings  given 

The  past  usurped  the  present.    Nor  speak 
Would  he  of  upstart  races,  Hun  and  Turk, 
But  led  our  discourse  unto  days  when  Greek 
Was  sung  to  Dian,  and  Pan  did  lurk 

Among  the  reeds.     We  spoke  of  Hesiod 
And  his  pageantry  of  gods ;  of  quests 

Odyssian;  of  the  embattled  ranks  which 

trod 
Before  the  gates  of  Troy;  of  Pluto's  guests; 

Of  Ena,  bringing  from  the  underworld 
Her  gift,  each  springtime,  of  the  fairy  flowers 

Which    winter    hides ;    of    Danae's    golden 

showers ; 
And  that  strange  fable  of  Narcissus, 

So  wrapt  in  love  of  his  own  beauty 
That  love  of  others  and  life's  duty 

Were  all  forgot  and,  at  a  look, 
He  sprang  to  his  own  image  in  the  brook. 

"So  runs  the  tale,"  my  friend  asserted, 
"But  tales  do  ofttimes  miss  the  sense,  or  feint 
At  facts,  misleading  men,  and  Truth  per 
verted 
Leaves  judgment  false. 

'Twas  life,  not  death 
That  came,  when,  prone  beside  the  stream. 

[  85  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

Narcissus    gazed    upon    its    mirror    and 

therein 
Descried  his  inner  strife." 

"Is  it  not  so?"  I  asked, 
"That  his  own  face,  so  often  praised  in 

song, 
Bereft  the  sight  by  its  own  beauty?" 

"Son,  they  have  told  thee  wrong. 
Faultless  it  was  in  seeming;  alas,  that  mask 
should  be 

So  false  in  semblance ;  for  I  was  he, 
The    fair    Narcissus,    son    of    Cephissus    and 
Liriope, 

Foremost  in  Thesbian  grace. 

"Yet  not  my  face 
It  was  which  then  I  saw  reflected, 

Borne  on  the  moving  stream 
Beneath  my  wondering  eyes, 

But  to  my  soul's  surprise, 
The  sequence  of  the  lives  that  I  had  lived ; 

Lives  filled  with  powers  neglected; 
Many  and  base  and  loveless ;  stretching  far 

Into  the  ages  gone. 

Each  life  did  pass 
Before  me  in  pictured  revelation,  distinct 

[  86  ] 


THE     BROOK     OF     REVELATIONS 

Like  profiled  cameo  standing  white 
Against  its  ground  of  blue,  instinct 
With  the  feebleness  and  slight 
Of  days  amiss  and  aright. 

"And,  in  that  moving  glass 

Of  Truth,  'twas  shown  how  poor  a  thing 
Narcissus  was ;  how  graceless,  false  in  ring, 
How  most  unfair  his  soul  looked  in  the  stream 

Of  life. 

And  from  the  dream 

Of  that  clear  sight,  fraught  with  its  past, 
I  learnt  the  aim  of  life,  and  that  at  last 
Narcissus  should  be  fair. 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


XV 
A  PARABLE 

SHE  stood,  like  Rebekah  at  the  well;  a 
woman  of  the  nomad  Arabs,  clad  in  the 
blue  burnous  worn  by  her  race.  Over  her 
head  was  thrown,  with  careless  grace,  a  fold  of 
her  garment  screening  part  of  the  face ;  empha 
sizing  the  beauty  of  her  dark  eyes,  pensive  be 
neath  the  smooth,  brown  forehead.  Where 
water  had  splashed  from  o'er-filled  pitchers  the 
ground  was  russet  colored,  and  trodden  level 
by  innumerable  bare  feet.  Farther  off  the  sur 
face  was  sun-bleached  and  seamed  with  gaping 
cracks,  in  and  out  of  which  glided  the  green  and 
mottled  lizards.  At  a  few  paces  grew  two 
palms,  in  the  loom  of  whose  leaves  was  woven  a 
trembling  fabric  of  golden  light  and  sepia 
shadow,  cast  over  woman  and  well.  Overhead 
stretched  the  infinite  blue  of  Egypt's  sky. 

As  I  approached  I  noted  that  the  woman 
sought  to  pour  water  into  a  trough  for  the 
benefit  of  two  thirsty  goats,  but  the  vessel 
proving  too  heavy  to  be  handled  in  this  manner 

[  88  ] 


A     PARABLE 


by  such  slight  arms  as  hers,  the  privilege  fell 
to  me  of  helping  her;  and  whilst  the  animals 
drank,  we  spoke  of  the  mute  gratitude  of  beasts 
for  service  rendered. 

"If  my  intuition  speaketh  true,  my  sister,  to 
you  are  known  only  the  thoughts  which  are 
born  from  gentleness." 

"Not  so,  brother,"  answered  this  daughter  of 
the  desert,  "I  have  known  other  thoughts,  but 
Allah  is  merciful.  Remembered  are  his  teach 
ings.  'Twas  little  time  ago  my  husband  and  I 
quarreled,  and  in  my  anger  I  spoke  to  him  in 
words  that  had  been  madness  if  used  at  any 
other  time;  aye,  and  were  madness,  for  is  not 
anger  always  madness?  And  in  his  rage  he 
seized  me  by  the  wrist  so  hard  that  the  impress 
of  his  fingers  left  a  blue  bracelet  stamped 
around  my  wrist.  It  was  not  a  bruise  or  time 
would  have  lessened  it,  nor  did  it  hurt,  save  in 
my  heart.  I  told  him  not  of  this  badge  of  re 
proof  which  I  wore  upon  my  wrist ;  nor  confided 
I  in  any.  But  Allah  sees  all. 

"Three  days  agone  I  was  coming  hither  with 
an  empty  pitcher  when  I  met  two  men  quarrel 
ing  over  the  profit  on  a  bag  of  dates.  From 
words  they  came  to  threats  and  from  threats 
to  blows. 

[  89  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

"There  was  none  to  help  so  I  laid  my  pitcher 
down,  and  ran  between  the  quarrelers,  imploring 
them  to  remember  that  only  the  dogs  of  the 
street  fought  thus,  and  that  Allah  gave  reason 
to  men  that  they  might  arrange  in  fair  ways 
their  disputes.  The  men  tried  to  push  me 
aside,  but  I  would  not  go,  and  held  my  place 
between  them;  and  the  delay  won  them  to 
laughter  and  friendliness  again. 

"Brother,  the  end  of  my  story  shall  answer 
your  thought  of  me.  The  men  went  on  their 
way  together.  I  refound  and  filled  my  pitcher, 
and  with  glad  feet  returned  to  the  village. 
There,  as  I  lifted  the  pitcher  from  my  head, 
the  burnous  slipped  from  off  my  arm,  and  be 
hold  the  badge  of  anger  upon  my  wrist,  worn 
so  many  days,  had  gone;  my  arm  had  for 
gotten  ;  only  my  heart  remembered.  Allah  sees 
all." 


A     EOMANY     PROPHET 


XVI 
A   ROMANY   PROPHET 

And  this  our  life,  .  .  . 

Finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 

Sermons  in  stones.  As  You  LIKE  IT 

IN  every  object  dwells  the  still  small  voice 
which  sympathy  may  hear.  A  picture, 
statue,  vase  convey  to  us  the  subtle  mes 
sages  entrusted  to  them  by  their  creators ;  how 
should  a  leaf,  a  flower,  a  crystal  be  less  eloquent? 
Sometimes  the  object  speaks  of  itself  and  in 
our  inmost  selves  we  listen;  sometimes  it  stirs 
our  memories  to  responding  tones  which  join 
the  echoes  of  days  agone;  sometimes  it  wakes 
the  superconsciousness  which  is  latent  in  each 
of  us.  I  remember  an  exceptionally  intelligent 
workman  engaged  in  fixing  supports  to  the 
cover  of  an  Egyptian  sarcophagus  refusing  to 
continue  at  his  task  because  of  the  strange 
voices  he  heard  when  at  work  inside  this  tomb. 
On  another  occasion  I  handed  to  a  friend  a 
small  terra-cotta  lamp  of  the  age  of  the 
crusades.  It  had  just  been  excavated  from  an 

[  91  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

old  site  in  Malta,  and  forthwith  he  gave  me, 
psychometically,  the  story  of  this  humble  shard 
with  details  so  dramatic  and  clear  that  they 
led  to  other  interesting  discoveries.  Amongst 
many  similar  instances  I  have  known  a  lady 
to  suffer  keen  anguish  and  to  ask  protection 
from  "a  sea  of  angry  faces  and  shaken  fists 
and  straw  and  blood  and  knives"  when  quite 
unwittingly  she  had  taken  into  her  hand  a  ring 
worn  by  Marie  Antoinette  at  her  execution. 

These  thoughts  are  suggested  by  a  small  slab 
of  peacock  marble  which  the  writer  uses  as  a 
paper-weight.  It  was  picked  up  near  a  Chris 
tian  shrine  amid  the  Etruscan  hills  and  now 
with  mute  insistence  bids  my  pen  pay  homage 
to  its  place  of  origin.  The  mental  scene  is 
therefore  Italian  where  the  brown-roofed  houses 
of  Siena  cling  to  their  terraced  slopes  like  rocks 
jutting  from  a  cascade  of  peat-colored  water, 
bordered  by  verdant  banks  and  flecked  with  a 
foam  of  blossoms.  Here,  about  forty  years 
ago,  a  young  English  lady,  then  studying  sing 
ing  under  a  noted  Italian  maestro  and  since 
famous  on  the  operatic  stages  of  England  and 
America,  was  wandering  through  the  by-ways 
of  this  town  of  Tuscany,  and  had  sought  tem 
porary  shelter  from  the  glare  of  the  noonday 

[92  ] 


A     EOMANY     PROPHET 

sun  beneath  a  wayside  arbor  of  vine-clad  trellis 
work.  On  one  side  of  this  shady  refuge  stood 
a  broken  shrine  dedicated  to  Our  Lady  and  on 
the  other  side  trickled  into  its  stone  basin  a 
small  fountain. 

The  girl  had  not  rested  long  in  this  place 
when  a  man  clad  in  the  Italian  peasant's  style, 
with  cloak  thrown  over  the  shoulder  and  a 
brilliant  kerchief  tied  around  his  neck,  ap 
proached.  In  dress  he  was  an  Italian  but  in 
speech  and  features  he  belonged  to  the  wander 
ing  family  of  the  Gypsies,  whose  colloquial 
name  of  the  Egyptians  links  them  with  the 
ancient  cult  of  divination.  After  fulfilling  his 
duties  to  the  spiritual  and  physical  man  by 
bending  in  salutation  to  the  shrine,  and  drink 
ing  at  the  fountain,  he  addressed  the  girl. 
Their  conversation  led  to  the  golden  sunlight, 
and  from  thence  to  the  systems  of  other  worlds 
which  the  stars  denote,  and  how  the  prayers  and 
aims  of  men  must  find  somewhere  in  the  starry 
vault  the  responses  sought. 

Ultimately  the  Gypsy  asked  her  if  she  truly 
wished  to  know  what  the  stars  had  to  tell  her; 
and  half  in  curiosity  and  half  for  adventure's 
sake  she  promised  to  meet  this  wandering  child 
of  the  Romany  clan  beneath  the  shrine  of  Our 

[  93  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

Lady  when  the  sky  was  dark  and  its  script  clear 
to  read. 

Accordingly  at  the  appointed  hour  she  left 
the  silent  streets  of  the  town  and  found  her  way 
to  the  lonely  shrine;  no  longer  the  jealous  focus 
of  the  Sun  but  bathed  in  the  light  of  the  Moon 
and  its  choir  of  attendant  stars.  The  Gypsy 
was  already  there  busily  drawing  with  his  staff 
sundry  figures  in  the  dust  of  the  ground,  while 
every  now  and  then  he  would  look  upward  at 
the  sky  and  apparently  bring  back  therefrom 
some  note  to  add  to  his  hieroglyphs  or  find 
cause  to  erase  some  sign  not  in  harmony  with 
his  thoughts. 

After  watching  him  some  time  she  drew  near, 
and  he  acknowledged  her  presence  with  a  quiet 
gesture  but  continued  silently  his  reading  of  the 
heavens  and  his  writing  in  the  dust.  At  length, 
his  calculations  ended,  he  studied  them  intently. 
Then,  carefully  obliterating  all  that  he  had 
written,  he  approached  the  wondering  girl  and 
spoke. 

"Madonna,  thy  life  will  shine  with  the  bright 
ness  of  the  stars  above,  yet  thy  brightness  must 
be  short-lived.  It  will  be  the  brightness  of  a 
shooting-star  that  calls  the  world  to  notice. 
The  gift  of  song  is  thine.  Numberless  are  the 


A     E O M A N Y     PROPHET 


men  and  women  who  will  come  to  hear  thee  sing, 
and  in  their  hearts  they  will  love  thee.  Yet 
there  shall  be  one  amongst  them  who  loves  thee 
most.  He  will  be  thy  husband,  and  to  him  thou 
shalt  bear  three  children;  one  shall  die  as  a 
child,  one  shall  die  in  a  far  land  where  palm 
trees  grow,  and  the  third  shall  dwell  in  a  land 
where  the  snows  are  deep. 

"Not  many  are  the  years  of  thy  wifehood, 
for  the  waters  of  the  sea  shall  swallow  him  and 
his  ship,  and  scarcely  shall  be  known  the  place 
of  his  burial  beneath  the  great  waters.  And 
thou  shalt  hide  thy  sorrows  in  thine  art  of  song, 
and  rapidly  shalt  thou  attain  fame  and  friends 
and  wealth. 

"But  thy  course  is  then  run.  Thy  last  song 
shall  kill  thee.  Even  as  thy  hearers  are  ac 
claiming  thy  genius,  thy  light  shall  end  in  death, 
in  the  seventeenth  year  from  this  hour." 

The  entire  prophecy,  given  in  this  strange 
way,  beneath  the  watchful  stars  was  fulfilled 
in  every  particular.  The  lady  became  a  famous 
singer.  She  married  the  captain  of  an  English 
ship  which  lies  "full  fathoms  deep"  with  all  her 
crew  beneath  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic.  She 
bore  him  three  children;  one  of  whom  died  in 
infancy,  another  died  in  India;  and  the  third 

[  95  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

lives  in  America  "where  the  snows  are  deep." 
Soon  after  the  tragic  death  of  her  husband, 
when  singing  before  an  audience  in  England, 
she  broke  a  blood  vessel  and  died  the  same  night, 
in  the  flower  of  her  youth  and  fame,  and  in  the 
exact  year  foretold  by  the  picturesque  seer, 
who,  like  Archimedes  of  Syracuse,  used  the 
sands  as  his  writing  board. 

Be   quiet,   little   paper-weight;   have   I   not 
faithfully  set  down  your  message? 


DEATH     AND     LIFE     ARE      NEIGHBORS 


XVII 

WHERE  DEATH  AND  LIFE  ARE 
NEIGHBORS 

Then  God  waked,  and  it  was  morning, 

Matchless  and  supreme. 
All  Heaven  seemed  adorning 

Earth  in  its  esteem. 

OVER  the  sleeping  Nile  hangs  Egypt's 
night  spangled  with  a  myriad  stars. 
Dimly  we  discern  the  mudbank  to  which 
we  are  moored,  and  the  adjoining  plain,  bor 
dered  by  the  western  desert  hills.  Across  the 
broad  river  lies  the  tourist-burdened  Luxor,  now 
restful  amid  its  palms  and  temples ;  and  beyond 
are  the  ghostly  shapes  of  Karnak,  scattered 
upon  its  embracing  sands,  wind-driven  from 
Arabian  steeps.  Under  the  prow  of  our  daha- 
beah  the  ripples  are  whispering  secrets  which 
the  river  learned  in  the  land  of  Cush  and  the 
far  wilds  of  Abyssinia.  The  silence  is  the  si 
lence  of  things  dead  and  forgotten ;  for  Savak, 
the  crocodile-god,  whose  robe  of  state  is  the 

[  97  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

darkness,  and  whose  ministers  are  the  gods  of 
the  underworld,  holds  nocturnal  court. 

Hush!  was  that  the  cry  of  some  priest  of 
Ammon,  'scaped  from  his  mummy-case  hidden 
in  a  lonely  tomb  of  yonder  Lybian  cliffs? 
Above  our  mast  it  sounded  and  now  passes  on 
soft  wings  towards  the  monoliths  of  Thebes, 
"proud  city  of  No,  the  jackals  and  owls  shall 
make  their  dwellings  in  thy  palaces."  In  its 
flight  it  has  disturbed  the  dogs  of  the  near-by 
village,  and  their  discordant  protest,  rising 
from  solo  to  chorus,  sinks,  too  slowly,  back  to 
solo  and  silence.  Spirit  or  owl  it  knew  the  limi 
tations  of  the  night,  for  over  the  black 
ridge  of  the  eastern  hills  a  greenish  light  shows 
in  the  sky.  It  is  the  false  dawn,  the  wolf's  tail, 
as  the  Arabs  call  it,  and  warns  men  to  prepare 
for  the  coming  day.  Slowly  it  dies,  and  the 
dark  settles  once  more  o'er  the  land,  and  upon 
eyelids  dreaming  of  Cheops  and  his  Pyramids, 
or  Rameses  smiting  Hittites. 

Egypt  sleeps. 

Again  the  sky  lightens  in  tints  of  pinks  and 
mauves ;  shyly  at  first,  and  then  in  bolder  reds 
and  yellows,  painting  the  desert  in  rosy 
chromes.  Savak  and  his  hosts  of  the  dark  are 
in  retreat  back  to  the  underworld;  his  rear- 

[  98  ] 


DEATH     AND     LIFE     ARE     NEIGHBORS 

guard  stealing  away  in  shadow  of  hill  and 
temple,  while  Ra,  the  new-born  sun,  mounts  in 
his  chariot  to  the  fields  of  heaven  to  greet  his 
father  Osiris,  and  to  pour  his  life-giving  rajs 
upon  the  world. 

Upon  the  deck  of  our  dahabeah  the  Arab 
sailors,  with  faces  turned  to  Mecca,  are  making 
the  seven  prostrations  and  beseeching  protec 
tion  through  the  day.  From  the  village  come 
trooping  the  wives  and  maidens  with  water- 
pitchers  balanced  on  their  heads.  Chattering 
they  descend  the  pathway  to  the  shore,  and 
stand  ankle-deep  in  the  stream,  helping  one  an 
other  to  fill  and  lift  their  ponderous  vessels ; 
and  then  move  homewards  in  statuesque  poses. 
The  bank  so  quiet  a  few  moments  ago  grows 
populous  with  brown-faced  men  intent  upon  our 
doings ;  with  large-eyed  wondering  babies ;  with 
goats  inquisitive  and  dogs  in  search  of  uncon- 
sidered  trifles ;  while  overhead  the  kites  make 
up  for  noiseless  wings  by  strident  screamings. 

Awakened  Egypt  is  astir. 

We  ride  through  the  village  streets  and 
among  its  dust  heaps,  passing  to  the  fields 
which  its  good  folk  cultivate.  It  appears  as 
though  we  were  moving  upon  an  enormous 
checker-board,  divided  into  innumerable  squares 

[  99  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

of  alternate  brown  arable  and  luxuriant  crops 
of  dourah,  beans  and  lentils.  The  squares  are 
separated  by  channels  embanked  about  a  foot 
above  the  level  of  the  ground,  down  which  run 
rills  of  water  lifted  from  the  river  bj  the 
workers  of  the  shadoofs  or  the  patient  buffaloes 
turning  sakir  wheels. 

Lovely  are  these  fields  in  the  lights  of  morn, 
carpeted  with  blossoming  crops,  and  framed  by 
lisping  rivulets  emprisoned  within  channels  of 
chocolate-colored  soil.  Where  the  life-giving 
water  passes  all  is  green  and  tender ;  and  where 
it  has  been  denied  the  skin  of  nature  is  cracked 
and  sore;  aching  beneath  the  relentless  sun. 
Agape  with  thirst  its  seamed  surface  is  dan 
gerous  to  the  rider,  yet  offers  refuge  to  innu 
merable  lizards  which  slip  into  the  fissures  at 
our  approach.  From  verdant  places  white  ibis 
mourn  the  days  when  temples  were  raised  to 
Thoth,  the  ibis-headed  scribe  of  the  gods ;  and 
flights  of  quail,  those  fat  and  querulent 
burghers  of  the  fields,  rise  protestingly  from 
disturbed  councils;  while  palm-doves  and  the 
crested  hoopees  play  hide  and  seek  amongst  the 
flowering  beans,  and  bee-eaters  dart  past  in 
flashes  of  burnished  copper. 

It  is  the  realm  of  Life. 

[  100  ] 


DEATH     AND      LIFE      ARE      NEIGHBORS 

With  an  abruptness  emphasized  by  contrast, 
we  emerge  upon  the  desert,  supreme  in  desola 
tion.  It  is  the  domain  of  Death ;  the  shroud  of 
mummied  Egypt.  In  its  grim  folds,  grey  with 
the  ages,  are  wrapped  the  dead  of  ancient 
Thebes.  These  wastes  of  sand,  stretching  away 
to  the  Lybian  hills,  form  one  vast  grave.  The 
ground  we  ride  upon  is  littered  with  bones  and 
shreds  of  mummy  cloths  and  fragments  of 
bitumized-flesh  that  were,  perchance,  long  since, 
part  of  some  fair  maid  in  the  court  of  Sethi,  or 
formed  the  muscle  of  a  soldier,  far-travelled  in 
lands  he  had  aided  to  subdue.  The  wind  dis 
creetly  smooths  again  the  winding  sheet  of  dust 
which  the  hoofs  of  our  animals  had  disturbed. 
The  place  is  filled  with  voices  and  every  object 
tells  of  the  living  past.  If  your  soul  is  so  at 
tuned  you  may  listen  to  the  laughter  of  her 
whom  we  thought  a  maid  of  Sethi's  court,  and 
hear  the  wheels  of  her  lover's  chariot  bearing 
her  back  to  the  river  from  some  ceremony;  or 
softly  comes  the  chant  of  singers  leading 
Pharaoh  and  his  courtiers  to  the  temple;  or 
again  the  wailing  of  hired  mourners,  the  neigh 
ing  of  horses,  and  the  murmur  of  the  crowd, 
crying,  as  they  did  for  Jacob,  "This  indeed  was 
a  great  mourning."  The  whole  space  vibrates 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

with  suggestion  until  some  trivial  incident  of 
the  present  breaks  the  spell,  and  only  the  desert 
is  about  us. 

It  is  the  forecourt  of  Egypt's  eternal  home, 
motionless,  save  where  the  undying  sun  makes 
dance  the  air  which  treads  upon  the  burning 
sands. 


[  102  ] 


THE     MORNING     SIGH     OF     MEMNON 

XVIII 
THE  MORNING  SIGH  OF  MEMNON 

The  voice  of  the  god  might  be  most  nearly  compared 
to  the  tender  music  of  a  harpstring.  PAUSANIAS 

AWHILE  ago  as  we  rode  from  a  village  of 
the  Theban  plain  into  the  western 
desert,  we  passed  from  the  fields  of  the 
living  to  the  graves  of  the  dead.  Often  I  have 
stood  upon  this  dividing  line  between  the 
abundant  life  and  fertility  nurtured  by  the 
Nile  and  the  implacable,  yellow  desert  where  all 
is  death.  The  small  lizards  which  have  their 
home  amid  the  verdant  crops  wear  liveries  of 
brilliant  green,  whereas  their  cousins  who  dwell 
a  few  feet  away  in  the  desert  are  clad  in  sombre 
browns  and  yellows.  Woe  be  to  the  lizard  who 
crosses  from  one  environment  to  the  other.  In 
stantly  the  sharp  eyes  of  some  kite,  wheeling  in 
the  nether  blue,  perceive  the  green  lizard  on 
the  desert,  or  the  yellow  trespasser  amid  the 
greenery  of  the  fields,  and  straightway  upon 
whirring  wings  descendeth  kismet.  It  is  not 
well  to  lightly  cross  the  frontiers  of  life  and 
death  unless  some  knowledge  is  possessed  of 
conditioned  needs. 

[  103  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

In  the  center  of  this  Theban  plain,  betwixt 
the  life-giving  river  and  the  forebiding  Lybian 
cliffs,  appear  the  famed  colossi  of  Amenhotep; 
two  seated  figures,  dominating  immediate  space 
and  thought.  The  hugeness  of  their  stature — 
each  seated  figure  is  sixty-five  feet  in  height — 
is  magnified  by  the  waste  around,  and  solitude 
adds  immeasurably  to  their  dignity. 

What  mean  these  giants,  petrified  upon 
lonely  thrones?  What  message  stays  unspoken 
on  their  lips?  It  should  be  worthy  asking,  for 
in  pose  and  place  they  are  kings  of  more  than 
the  wilderness,  regnant  in  a  realm  real  although 
of  the  past.  The  erudite  in  Egyptology  tell  us 
that  the  warrior  Pharaoh  Amenhotep  of  Thebes 
erected  these  two  statues  of  himself;  that  they 
were  originally  monoliths  of  breccia  and  sat 
before  the  pylon  of  a  temple  long  since  dis 
mantled;  that  the  more  northerly  of  the  two 
was  partly  destroyed  by  an  earthquake  in  27 
B.  C.  and  the  upper  part  thrown  down;  that 
the  Roman  Emperor  Septimus  Severus  restored 
the  statue  with  blocks  of  sandstone  in  170 
A.  D. ;  and  that  ancient  travellers  referred  in 
their  writings  to  the  northern  statue  as  Mem- 
non.  How  insufficient  sounds  so  terse  a  de 
scription.  It  reads  like  the  catalogue  of  some 

[  104  ] 


THE     MORNING     SIGH     OF     M  E  M  N  O  N 

dealer  in  antiquities  rather  than  an  effort  to 
hearken  to  the  voice  of  these  kingly  figures  who 
grant  us  audience. 

It  were  fitting  to  approach  prepared.  Let  us 
therefore  recall  who  Memnon  was,  and  why 
ancient  travellers  bestowed  his  name  upon  one 
of  these  statues.  In  the  pages  of  the  blind  poet 
of  Attica  we  find  related  the  encounter  between 
Achilles  and  Memnon,  the  king  of  the  Ethi 
opians,  before  the  walls  of  Troy.  After  brave 
words  and  mutual  defiance,  they  fight  and 
Memnon  is  killed.  Then  cometh  Eos,  his 
mother,  who  carries  his  body  from  the  field  and 
mourns  his  loss  so  passionately  that  Zeus, 
moved  by  her  tears,  awakens  the  dead  Memnon 
and  bestows  upon  him  the  gift  of  immortality. 

In  the  course  of  time  this  story  came  to  have 
two  renderings.  To  the  Greek  unversed  in  re 
ligious  subtleties,  Memnon  was  simply  a  great 
warrior  who  came  from  the  far  East  and  was 
slain  in  the  Trojan  war.  He  was,  however,  re 
puted  to  have  possessed  such  superb  physique 
and  beauty  that  he  became  a  favorite  subject 
for  picturing  on  vases  and  armor,  whereon  he 
was  generally  represented  as  black,  being  an 
Ethiopian. 

But  to  the  cultured  Greek  the  legend  spoke 

[  105  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

more  deeply.  The  tears  of  Eos  were  not  the 
tears  of  a  mortal.  Eos  was  the  Dawn,  and  her 
son,  Memnon,  could  be  no  other  than  the  Light 
of  Day.  Each  morning,  therefore,  his  mother 
wept  for  his  absence,  and  her  tears  are  seen  by 
men  as  the  early  dew-drops.  The  son  of  the 
Dawn  might  vanish  for  a  time,  as  the  night 
shrouds  the  day,  but  he  could  not  be  destroyed. 
He  was  immortal.  Born  in  the  East,  the  land 
of  the  rising  Sun,  the  dewdrops  fall  from  the 
eyes  of  the  watching  Dawn  until  she  sees  her 
son  lift  his  awakened  head  above  the  world  and 
run  his  course  across  the  heavens  to  the  west. 

Passing  to  Egypt  the  Greeks  were  instructed 
in  the  cult  of  Osiris  and  Isis,  and  how  the  Sun- 
god  Ra  nightly  conquered  the  powers  of  dark 
ness  and  came  anew  each  morning  to  an  eager 
world.  With  minds  nursed  on  these  legends, 
and  intuitively  conscious  of  their  meanings,  our 
wandering  Greeks  visited  the  Theban  nome, 
and  there  learnt  from  the  priests  that  a  curious 
phenomenon  had  been  discovered  in  connection 
with  the  more  northerly  of  the  colossal  figures 
of  Amenhotep.  It  had  been  noticed  that  every 
morning  when  the  rays  of  the  rising  sun  touched 
the  statue  it  gave  forth  musical  sounds  like  soft 
meanings  or  the  twang  of  a  harp-string.  In 

[  106  ] 


THE    MORNING    SIGH    OP    MEMNON 

keenest  sympathy  with  Nature  and  prone  to 
see  in  every  unexplained  movement  and  sound 
the  presence  of  the  unseen  gods,  the  Greeks  in 
stantly  ascribed  this  responsiveness  of  the 
statue  to  the  morning  Sun  as  the  voice  of  the 
Spirit  of  Day.  To  them  it  was  the  reborn 
light,  answering  the  maternal  greeting  of  Eos. 
Gradually,  as  Grecian  poesy  was  wedded  to 
the  involved  Egyptian  teachings,  "the  morning 
sigh  of  Memnon"  became  one  of  the  accepted 
oracles  of  the  world.  Probably  the  sounds 
given  forth  by  the  statue  were  due  to  the  pass 
age  of  air  through  the  porous  stone,  caused 
by  the  sudden  change  of  temperature  at  sun 
rise;  although  the  modern  traveller  may  watch, 
as  did  the  writer,  an  Arab  climb  the  monolith 
and  produce  dull  and  unconvincing  tones  from 
a  sonorous  stone  which  lies  hidden  in  its  chest. 
But  to  the  ancient  Egyptian  and  Greek  the 
statue  spoke  in  no  uncertain  tones.  Venerated 
from  the  Danube  to  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  it 
gave  to  its  votaries,  at  the  hour  of  dawn,  ad 
monishment,  praise  or  counsel,  bidding  all  who 
listened  know  that  shadows  are  transient  and 
light  immortal. 


[  107  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


XIX 

LIGHT  AND  SHADOW 

Throughout  life,  'tis  death  that  makes  life  live, 
Gives  it  whatever  the  significance. 

R.   BEOWNING 

GOD  hath  made  the  mountain  for  thy 
altar,  proclaims  Zoroaster,  shaping  his 
teachings  to  the  needs  of  wanderers. 
To  the  ancient  Egyptians,  with  their  populous 
cities  strung  on  the  silt-laden  Nile,  such  limi 
tation  to  homage  of  the  gods  was  unthinkable. 
Nevertheless,  the  amplitude  of  Egyptian 
thought  could  and  did  conceive,  after  its  own 
kind,  the  Zoroastrian  ideal  and  offer  to  light,  as 
a  fitting  altar,  the  dark  heart  of  a  mountain. 
If  the  Sun  would  thus  accept  worship,  it  should 
be  his ;  but  the  mountain  must  first  be  rendered 
worthy.  Its  core  should  be  hewn  from  it;  its 
native  roof  should  be  upheld  by  giants  of  stone ; 
the  walls  of  its  cavernous  depths  should  tell  in 
ideograms  the  aspirations  of  the  land;  its 
shadows  should  teach  the  true  meaning  of  light ; 

[  108  ] 


LIGHT    AND    SHADOW 

and  in  the  night  of  its  chambers  the  groping 
souls  of  men  should  find  far  vision. 

Out  of  such  thoughts  was  born  the  wondrous 
shrine  of  Abu  Simbel  in  Nubia.  Caves  in  many 
lands  have  been  enlarged  by  men  for  religious 
purposes,  or  carved  in  the  mountain  sides  of 
India  and  elsewhere,  but  none  quite  in  the  spirit 
or  with  the  grandeur  of  this  temple,  marooned 
in  the  desert  between  the  first  and  second 
cataracts  of  the  Nile.  What  inspiration  was  it 
that  bade  the  architect  of  Sesostris  forget  the 
columned  courtyards  of  by-gone  Pharaohs, 
sentinelled  by  lofty  pylons  lifting  to  the  eternal 
blue,  and  conjure  a  lonely  and  inanimate  moun 
tain  of  Nubia  into  a  living  anthem  to  the  Sun 
who  is  born  each  morn  of  the  dark  and  passes 
daily  from  Death  to  Life.  As  I  wandered  years 
ago  in  the  halls  of  this  Nubian  temple,  I  in 
voked  the  spirit  of  its  creator,  biding  him 
teach  my  heart  the  secret  of  his  purpose,  en 
treating  him  to  aid  me  catch  some  phrase  of 
his  enduring  prayer  echoing  down  the  corridors 
of  time.  And  measureless  was  his  response. 

There  are  epochs  in  the  lives  of  nations  when 
the  atmosphere  is  full  of  whispered  innovations. 
We  call  them  renaissances  but  they  are  born 
with  a  fulness  of  knowledge  and  with  the  in- 

[  109  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

spirations  of  maturity.  So  was  it  in  Egypt 
thirty-two  centuries  ago,  when  the  Ramesesan 
dynasty  had  made  her  mistress  of  the  known 
world,  and  men  sustained  far  hopes  with  strong 
endeavors.  Let  us  sense  how  the  heart  of 
Egypt  then  could  beat ;  let  us  go  together  to 
this  quiet  altar  set  in  the  mountain  depths,  and 
watch  the  Silences  minister  to  the  eternal  veri 
ties  of  life. 

We  will  leave  behind  us  the  beaten  tracks  of 
Egypt ;  for  tours  distort  and  guide  books  dis 
color  the  stream  of  thought.  Our  dahabeah 
has  ascended  the  now  forgotten  first  cataracts 
of  the  Nile;  has  passed  the  island  of  Philae, 
more  beautiful  in  olden  days  than  the  Parthe 
non,  where  a  utilitarian  age  has  buried  beneath 
the  sighing  waves  the  sanctuaries  and  colon 
nades  of  Isis.  In  our  voyage  southward  we 
shall  not  share  the  fair  fertility  of  the  northern 
land  for  stern  in  its  aspects  is  this  Nubian 
river.  The  fields  which  stretch  away  till  lost  at 
the  feet  of  the  desert  hills  are  gone,  and  no 
where  can  be  seen  those  bounteous  crops  which 
gave  to  Egypt  the  name  of  the  land  of  plenty. 
In  their  stead  rise  craggy  bluffs  of  granite  or 
limestone  through  which  rushes  the  deep  river, 

[  no  ] 


LIGHT    AND    SHADOW 


or,  widening  out,  its  waters  travel  between  rival 
wastes  of  sand.  Poverty  is  written  on  the  face 
of  this  sun-scorched  country,  and  its  sparse 
population  tills  with  care  the  narrow  strip  of 
ground  which,  as  Herodotus  says,  is  the  gift 
of  the  Nile.  Thereon  the  natives  grow  slender 
harvests  of  bean  and  millet  and  tend  the  pre 
cious  date  palm  which  grows  in  the  outskirts 
of  every  village.  Between  Korosko  and  Derr, 
there  are  miles  of  these  palms,  like  an  undula 
ting  fringe  of  green  attached  to  the  brown  and 
golden  robes  of  the  desert. 

With  tortuous  course,  its  bed  full  of  shifting 
shoals,  its  banks  hemmed  in  or  wide  by  turns, 
the  river  winds ;  fit  symbol  of  the  path  of  life, 
to  the  riddle  of  which  we  seek  answer  from  the 
oracle  at  Abu  Simbel.  Each  day  we  sail  and 
warp  against  the  current,  which  reflects  in  its 
myriad  glimpses  the  fiery  eyes  of  the  Sun  until 
he  sinks,  weary  as  a  god  may  be  with  purposes 
fulfilled,  behind  the  western  hills  in  whose  shad 
ows  lieth  Amenti.  At  night  we  moor  the  un 
wieldy  boat  at  some  village ;  and  as  the  mooring 
pegs  are  driven  into  the  bank  the  villagers 
troop  down  to  watch  us,  bringing  uncouth  dag 
gers,  barbed  spears  and  leather  goods  to  barter 
for  our  simple  gifts,  amongst  the  most  coveted 


THE     SCHOOL     OP     SYMPATHY 

of  which  will  be  an  empty  bottle  to  hold  the 
oil  which  your  Ethiopian  needs  to  give  him 
a  cheerful  countenance.  Shyly  come  the  chil 
dren,  big-stomached  and  nude,  with  eyes  of  ga 
zelles,  gazing,  thumb  in  mouth,  at  the  big  boat 
and  our  strange  ways.  They  are  joined  by  the 
mothers,  living  statues  of  unconscious  grace, 
with  babe  on  shoulder  and  black  hair  decked 
with  a  Danae  shower  of  shells  and  coins.  Then 
follow  the  workers  of  the  shadoofs  and  sakirs, 
and  the  elders,  grave  and  reverend  seigneurs 
of  the  wilds,  eager  to  discuss  the  outside  world. 
Darkness  falls ;  the  village  sleeps  and  all  is 
quiet,  save  for  the  occasional  protest  of  the 
dogs  disturbed  in  dreams  by  owl  or  prowling 

jackals. 

»••*;**• 

In  the  final  miles  of  our  journey  the  scenery 
grows  sterile  and  desolate.  On  both  sides  are 
low  hills  over  the  broken  edges  of  which  the  Sa 
hara  and  Arabian  deserts  pour  their  golden 
cascades.  Suddenly,  as  we  turn  a  promontory, 
we  obtain  a  distant  view  of  Abu  Simbel  rising 
from  the  water's  edge  like  some  mystic  dome 
poised  between  heaven  and  earth  and  dimly  we 
discern  the  four  colossal  figures  of  Rameses 
which  are  seated  before  its  portal.  As  their 


LIGHT     AND     SHADOW 


dimensions  develop,  their  majestic  calm  and 
utter  solitude  impress  the  attention  vividly. 
Not  even  Karnak,  with  the  heaped-up  chaos  of 
its  bygone  palaces,  infuses  such  a  feeling  of 
awe  as  the  Nile  traveller  experiences  when  first 
he  comes  before  these  enormous  figures,  throned 
before  the  rock-temple  of  Ra. 

Cut  in  the  rock  of  the  mountain,  its  fa9ade  is 
over  one  hundred  feet  high,  and  on  each  side  of 
the  doorway  sit  two  effigies  of  Rameses  II  who 
caused  this  unique  shrine  to  be  hewn  in  testi 
mony  of  his  conquests  and  in  honor  of  his  gods. 
These  statues  are  sixty-six  feet  in  height,  each 
of  their  forefingers  being  a  yard  long.  The 
figure  on  the  southern  side  of  the  entrance  has 
been  broken  off  at  the  waist  by  an  earthquake 
and  lies,  in  itself  an  imposing  ruin,  at  the  foot 
of  its  tenantless  throne.  In  a  deep  niche  over 
the  door  stands  Ra,  the  Sun-god,  crowned  with 
the  disc  emblematical  of  his  cult,  and  fronting 
that  east  wherefrom  each  morn  he  bathes  this 
astounding  temple  with  his  light. 

On  entering  we  are  appalled  by  the  profound 
gloom.  The  darkness  is  peopled  with  the 
wraiths  of  other  days ;  our  voices  are 
hushed,  our  feet  as  noiseless  upon  the  invading 
carpet  of  sand.  Above  our  heads  the  mountain 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

is  upheld  by  huge  columns  of  native  rock, 
against  each  of  which  stands  a  figure  of  Osiris 
almost  as  high  as  the  roof,  with  hands  folded 
across  the  breast,  holding  the  signs  of  life  and 
power.  Impassively  their  eyes  regard  us  as  we 
pass  down  the  aisles  of  their  stately  home ;  eyes 
that  are  cold  and  quiet  but  watchful  of  men  as 
are  the  centuries. 

Two  hundred  yards  from  the  temple  door, 
where  the  light  of  day  was  left,  is  an  adytum 
or  sanctuary,  and  in  the  centre  of  this  inner 
chamber  stands  an  altar  — the  altar  of  the 
Sun,  whereon  thirty-two  centuries  ago  Sesos- 
tris,  the  conqueror  of  the  world  of  his  time, 
sacrificed  to  the  gods  amid  pageants  which 
filled  these  halls  where  now  reigns  solitude.  In 
such  a  place  the  stillness  speaks.  Surrounded 
by  the  emblems  of  a  faith  which  gave  to  Greece 
her  mysteries  and  bequeathed  many  a  tenet  to 
our  modern  creeds,  one  senses  deeply  those  con 
victions  which  found  such  noble  expression. 


On  my  first  visits  to  the  temple  I  wandered 
in  its  recesses,  studied  its  mural  writings,  made 
myself  familiar  with  its  material  aspects.  Yet 
each  time  that  I  stepped  forth  from  its  gloom 


LIGHT     AND     SHADOW 


into  the  brightness  of  day  I  knew  that  I  had 
missed  its  message,  that  I  had  not  heard  the 
voices  of  its  ministering  presences.  Therefore 
I  resolved  that  I  would  sleep  at  night  within  the 
temple,  and  I  bade  my  Nile  sailors  not  to  dis 
turb  me,  despite  their  assurances  that  evil  hap 
penings  would  befall.  And  Isis  smiled  upon 
my  resolution,  silvering  shore  and  seated  Pha 
raohs  with  her  rays,  but,  wistful  of  my  quest, 
she  hung  the  velvet  of  her  night  across  the 
portal.  Within  the  temple  the  giants  of  the 
great  hall  greeted  me  with  stony  stare,  and  the 
pictured  votaries  seemed  whispering  to  graven 
gods  as  I  passed  through  succeeding  chambers 
to  the  sanctuary.  Here  I  called  upon  the  soul 
of  him  who  devised  this  temple,  to  teach  me  its 
purpose  and  his  thought,  and  I  lay  down  upon 
the  altar  of  Ra  and  slept. 

Before  the  night  of  the  outside  world  had 
turned  to  day  I  awoke.  A  beam  of  light  had 
touched  my  face  and  as  I  sprang  up  it  fell 
upon  the  center  of  the  altar  of  the  sun.  All 
else  around  was  darker  than  the  darkness  of  a 
thousand  nights.  But  I  was  aware  that  in  the 
far  distance  beyond  the  Nile,  at  the  meeting 
of  two  hills,  the  young  sun  peeped  at  his  sleep 
ing  world.  Across  the  intervening  desert  and 


THE     SCHOOL,     OF     SYMPATHY 

river,  through  the  long  corridors  of  the  shrine, 
this  first  beam  passed  to  lay,  as  its  first  touch 
of  day,  a  ray  of  the  eternal  light  upon  this 
altar  set  in  the  eternal  shadow. 

Wise  architect,  we  sense  the  heart  of  thy 
philosophy.  If  the  Sun  is  born  each  morn,  at 
taining  to  fullness  of  vigor  at  noon  and  declin 
ing  slowly  to  the  west  at  eve;  if  then  it  seems 
that  it  is  lost  to  the  world  of  the  living  so  that 
we  know  it  only  in  memory,  doth  it  not  live  in 
the  realms  of  Amenti  and  come  again  to  rebirth? 
If  this  be  so  of  Ha,  the  Lord  of  Light,  shall 
it  not  be  true  of  Pharaoh,  and  if  thus  with 
Pharaoh  shall  the  meanest  of  subjects  share 
less  in  the  great  lesson?  Wise  architect,  we 
thank  thee. 


BY      HIM      WHO      SLEEPS     AT      PHIL/E 


XX 

BY  HIM  WHO  SLEEPS  AT  PHIL^J 

IT  is  remarkable  how  unfailingly  men,  in  all 
climes  and  conditions  of  evolution,  have 
felt  the  magnetic  influences  of  certain  lo 
calities,  often  with  no  apparent  reason  behind 
the  traditions  which  gather  round  them.  The 
veneration  bestowed  is  not  the  source  of  our 
wonder;  rather  is  it  the  surety  and  eagerness 
with  which  men  discover  and  admit  the  forces 
emanating  from  such  centres;  using  them  to 
their  uplifting.  Scores  of  such  potent  places, 
scattered  over  the  world,  have,  from  different 
causes,  swayed  the  peoples  of  empires  dead 
and  living.  Most  of  them  possess  histories 
which  clearly  suggest  the  source  of  their  power 
for  good ;  or  legendary  lore  through  the  mists 
whereof  we  faintly  discern  the  far-off  cause  of 
the  transmitted  effect.  But  in  the  majority  of 
cases  only  their  latent  influence  remains 
screened,  ofttimes  by  a  veil  of  superstition, 
like  a  fair  face  hidden  behind  the  mask  of  car- 


T  HE     SCHOOL     OP     SYMPATHY 

nival.  The  purpose  and  the  power  have  been 
fulfilled,  the  story  of  their  origin  is  lost. 

Such  an  example  is  the  island  of  Philas  which 
once  gemmed  the  placid  stream  above  the  first 
cataracts  of  the  Nile;  the  joj  in  the  centuries 
that  are  dead  of  all  lovers  of  the  beautiful; 
the  resting-place  of  Isis  and  Osiris;  the  "sa 
cred-isle"  of  ancient  creeds.  In  the  days 
when  Ptolemaic  Pharoahs  reigned  in  Sais,  there 
were  few  expressions  more  revered  in  Greece  or 
Egypt  than  the  adjuration  "by  Him  who  sleeps 
at  Philse."  Contracts  and  vows  of  moment 
were  made  binding  by  the  utterance  of  this 
phrase.  In  the  mind  of  the  speaker  it  invoked 
Osiris  to  bear  witness  to  the  oath  thus  attested 
in  his  name ;  to  guide  its  due  fulfilling ;  to  pro 
tect  him  whose  promise  was  thus  made  in  the 
name  of  the  mighty  Lord  of  life,  whose  realm 
was  the  universe,  and  whose  resting-place  was 
Philae  in  the  far  waters  of  the  Nubian  Nile. 

How  came  this  small  and  distant  isle  to  win 
a  renown  so  widely  spread  and  an  influence  so 
unquestioned?  What  benediction,  forgotten 
amongst  the  myriad  secrets  of  the  Sphinx,  first 
gave  its  protective  radiations,  and  filled  the 
early  Greeks  and  Egyptians  with  the  sense  of 
this  focussed  power?  In  later  ages,  with  the 

[  H8] 


BY     HIM     WHO     SLEEPS     AT     PHIL2E 

accretion  of  traditions  and  the  consequent  repe 
tition  of  ceremonials,  and  converging  thoughts 
one  may  understand  the  accumulated  power 
of  the  island.  But  the  early  pages  of  the 
record  are  strangely  mute.  In  the  days  when 
I  assisted  at  its  excavation  the  lowest  strata 
of  the  ground  yielded  only  the  crumbled  adobes 
of  humble  villages,  the  inhabitants  of  which 
may,  perchance,  have  watched  the  granite 
blocks  of  Syene  sent  down  the  river  to  the 
builders  of  the  Pyramids.  And  the  subsequent 
ages  piled  up  layer  upon  layer  of  uninstructive 
ruin,  like  the  seared  pages  of  a  book  which  has 
passed  through  some  fire. 

Then  came  the  hour  of  acknowledgment,  the 
time  when  men  first  whispered  of  this  island, 
"take  off  thy  shoes  for  the  ground  whereon 
thou  standest  is  holy."  And  shrines  arose; 
humble  at  first,  yet  sending  forth  their  influence 
for  good  as  tiny  pebbles  cast  into  the  stream 
form  concentric  and  ever-widening  rings  beyond 
all  measure  of  their  size.  And  the  fame  of 
Philag  grew  apace;  and  the  great  ones  of  the 
earth  vied  with  each  other  in  doing  honor  to  its 
gods,  so  that  rival  kings  stipulated  in  their 
treaties  for  permission  for  their  subjects  to 
visit  its  sanctuaries  unharmed,  and  even  bor- 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

rowed  the  images  of  its  gods  in  time  of  stress 
or  gladness ;  while  Pharoahs  of  Egypt  and 
tyrants  of  Greece  and  emperors  of  Rome  show 
ered  favors  upon  its  priesthood  until  "Ailak," 
the  angel-island,  jewelled  with  its  clustering 
temples,  deep  bowered  amid  its  palms  and  gar 
dens,  and  shining  even  as  the  face  of  Isis  re 
flected  in  her  silver  pool  of  Chelal,  won  the  title 
"the  sacred  isle  where  rest  the  gods." 

In  the  ancient  writings  there  is  no  distinct 
mention  of  Philse  until  the  reign  of  Nektanebos, 
about  350  B.C.,  to  whose  time  the  oldest  build 
ings  on  the  island  belong.  There  can  be  little 
doubt,  however,  that  long  before  that  decadent 
period  in  Egyptian  history  the  island  had  been 
held  in  veneration,  and  there  are  indications 
that  some  shrine  existed  as  far  back  as  1580 
B.C.,  when  Amosis  was  waging  his  long  fight 
against  the  intruding  Hyksos,  and  restoring 
the  earlier  order  of  things  in  Egypt.  Prob 
ably  some  of  these  minor  temples  were  removed 
to  make  room  for  later  and  more  worthy  erec 
tions,  while  others  being  built  too  near  the  con 
stantly  encroaching  water,  the  unmindful  river 
destroyed  the  sanctuaries  of  its  own  deities. 
But  from  the  time  of  Nektanebos  to  a  date 
comparatively  modern  the  island  must  have  been 

[  120  ] 


BY     HIM     WHO     SLEEPS     AT     PHIL^E 

a  hive  of  busy  workers,  resounding  with  the 
fashioning  of  granite  columns,  the  chiseling 
of  hieroglyphs,  the  sighing  of  ropes  straining 
at  mighty  monoliths,  the  panting  of  countless 
laborers  spent  with  their  tasks,  and  the  cries 
of  master  builders. 

It  is  probable  that  the  peculiar  sanctity  of 
the  place  was  first  ascribed  to  the  gods  of  the 
neighboring  cataracts,  but  their  worship  was 
afterwards  combined  with  that  of  other  deities, 
and  in  the  course  of  time  the  chief  temples  were 
dedicated  to  Isis  and  Osiris.  Most  of  the  im 
posing  buildings,  which,  until  recently,  lent  the 
island  its  characteristic  appearance,  were 
erected  by  the  Ptolemaic  Pharaohs  during  the 
three  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  and  by 
the  Roman  emperors  during  the  three  subse 
quent  centuries. 

Long  after  Egypt  had  been  Christianized, 
the  ancient-worship  still  held  sway  in  Nubia. 
Despite  the  edicts  of  Theodosius,  the  temples 
were  not  closed  until  the  reign  of  Justinian  in 
565,  when  Isis  saw  the  face  of  Mary  painted 
upon  her  walls  and  witnessed  her  chambers, 
decorated  with  the  symbol  of  the  Moon,  used 
for  the  creed  of  the  Cross.  Then  followed  the 
conquest  of  Egypt  by  the  Arabs  and  Philse 

[  121   ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

embraced  Islam,  whilst  in  the  northern  corner 
of  the  island  flourished  a  Coptic  town  of  sun- 
dried  bricks,  built  like  a  swallow's  nest  under 
the  eaves  of  the  mighty  fanes  whose  sculptured 
figures  were  daubed  with  plaster,  and  covered 
with  presentations  of  the  saints  and  the  in 
signia  of  Christianity. 

Let  us  visit  Philse  as  it  appeared  in  the  glory 
of  its  old  age  some  thirty-five  years  ago  before 
the  needs  of  a  utilitarian  age  had  dammed  the 
waters  of  the  Nile  at  Assouan.  In  that  aspect 
of  its  ruins,  and  in  the  full  sunlight  of  a  Nubian 
noon,  we  may  better  sense  the  memories  linger 
ing  amongst  the  white  colonnades  and  note  the 
shadowed  wrinkles  upon  the  time-worn  walls. 
Then  will  we  visit  it  lying  prone  and  dying, 
choosing  the  hour  when  from  her  throne  in 
heaven  Isis  weeps  in  tears  of  silvered  light  upon 
the  shrines  which  sink  forever  beneath  the  ris 
ing  river. 

Our  way  from  the  Nubian  town  of  Assouan 
will  lead  us  across  that  portion  of  the  desert 
which  borders  the  cataracts  on  their  eastern 
side;  the  rim  of  one  of  the  waste  spaces  of  the 
earth  where  granite  boulders  of  all  sizes  and 
fantastic  shapes  litter  the  drifting  sand.  No 
vegetation  may  live  here.  We  are  treading  the 

[  122  ] 


BY     HIM     WHO     SLEEPS     AT     PHIL.fi 

threshold  of  the  profound  desolations  of  Arabia 
from  which,  verily,  no  barriers  separate  us.  It 
is  nothingness  materialized — no  life  or  move 
ment  save  of  the  kites,  wheeling  under  a  dome  of 
metallic  blue,  and  an  atmosphere  that  quivers 
beneath  the  pitiless  sun.  The  banks  of  the 
upper  river  form  a  lake  above  the  cataracts, 
where  our  boat,  manned  by  its  Arab  sailors, 
awaits  us,  and  embarking  we  put  forth  to  the 
green  paradise  of  Philae  beckoning  us  to  its 
palms  and  shadows.  A  short  row  against  the 
current  which  swirls  around  many  self-sub 
merged  rocks  and  we  land  on  the  sandy  carpet 
of  the  sacred  isle  scattered  with  its  fragmentary 
litter  of  history. 

Each  separate  ruin,  studied  for  itself,  was  a 
gem,  lighting  one's  mind  with  suggestions  which 
still  might  sway  the  votary.  These  piled  evi 
dences  of  a  great  philosophy  and  of  profound 
occult  studies  were  numerous  some  years  ago, 
but  for  most  of  them  the  river  was  already 
forming  a  sarcophagus  which  men  might  no 
more  violate.  A  few  still  lingered  above  the 
tide.  In  all  representations  of  Philas  the  ex 
quisite  kiosk  built  by  the  Emperor  Trajan, 
and  known  as  Pharoah's  bed,  uplifted  its  grace 
ful  canopy  of  stone,  nor  had  the  invading 

[  123  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

waters  taken  from  us  the  peerless  colonnades 
which,  with  their  forests  of  carved  capitals, 
lined  a  causeway  worthy  the  Queen  of  Egypt's 
heaven.  Where  much  else  was  ruin,  time  had 
respected  her  sanctuary  and  the  coloring  on 
many  of  the  sculpturings  which  covered  the 
high  walls  and  columns  were  still  marvellously 
bright.  In  one  room,  called  the  "Chamber  of 
the  Ten  Columns,"  lingered  an  exquisite  ex 
ample  of  decorative  art.  Here  the  ceilings  of 
blue,  picked  out  with  golden  stars,  and  the 
green  and  orange  of  the  carvings,  preserved 
the  unchanged  look  of  its  former  state,  and 
furnished  a  feast  of  harmonious  coloring.  If 
Philae  in  its  decay  and  dust,  commanded  such 
wonder  for  the  vanished  faith  to  which  it 
bears  deathless  testimony,  we  may  faintly  pic 
ture  the  scenes  of  pomp  that  once  enlivened 
its  halls  and  terraces,  when  the  sacred  isle  was 
filled  with  royal  and  priestly  ceremonies.  The 
gorgeous  barges,  draped  in  costly  fabrics,  then 
came  gliding  to  the  sentinelled  stairs,  where 
their  owners  joined  the  glittering  processions 
of  priests  and  princes.  The  dimly-seen  interior 
of  the  temple  was  brilliant  with  lamps  and 
torches,  while  the  proud  knee  that  only  bent 
to  Heaven,  knelt  to  Osiris  and  Isis,  and  paid 

[  124  ] 


BY     HIM     WHO     SLEEPS     AT     PHILjE 

homage,  in  the  mystic  forms  of  that  religion 
which  has  stamped  its  liturgy  on  many  creeds. 
The  pageants  have  disappeared  with  the  in 
cense  of  their  lamps  but  their  wraiths  of 
grandeur  still  proclaim  the  past. 

That  view  of  Philse  was  ours  thirty-five  years 
ago.  Now  let  us  see  a  great  queen  die ;  a  centre 
of  magnetism  surrender  its  powers  when  those 
powers  have  fulfilled  their  purpose?  Modern 
science  has  done  its  work  only  too  well,  and 
today  the  grim  barrage  across  the  river  buries 
the  Nile  gods  beneath  their  waters.  Once  more 
let  us  make  our  way  towards  the  sad  rock  of 
Philse,  in  the  sympathetic  company  of  Pierre 
Loti.  The  wind  has  fallen  with  the  night,  and 
the  lake  is  calm.  To  the  yellow  sky  of  eve  has 
succeeded  one  that  is  blue-black,  "infinitely  dis 
tant,  where  the  stars  of  Egypt  scintillate  in 
myriads.  A  glimmering  light  shows  in  the  east 
and  the  full  moon  rises,  not  leaden-coloured  as 
in  our  climates,  but  straightway  very  luminous, 
and  surrounded  by  an  aureole  of  mist,  caused 
by  the  eternal  dust  of  the  sands."  As  we  row 
towards  the  now  baseless  kiosk,  lulled  by  the 
song  of  the  boatman,  the  great  disc  mounts 
into  the  sky  and  illuminates  everything  with  a 
gentle  splendour.  All  is  very  still;  the  boat- 

C  125  J 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 

men  cease  their  Nubian  song  and  the  occasional 
call  of  some  night  bird  suggests  only  the  drown 
ing  cry  of  a  spirit  of  the  past.  We  glide  be 
neath  the  capitals  of  submerged  columns  and 
stay  the  gentle  movements  of  the  oars  lest  they 
should  break  too  noisefully  upon  our  thoughts. 
It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  this  is  the  Philse 
of  a  few  years  ago.  The  very  air  seems  cold 
as  if  the  life  blood  of  the  place  no  longer 
coursed  within  its  walls,  and  the  graven  stones 
are  clammy  to  the  touch.  We  hear  only  the 
sighing  of  the  wind  and  the  lapping  of  the 
water  against  the  columns  and  the  bas-reliefs. 
Then  suddenly  there  comes  the  noise  of  a  heavy 
body  falling,  followed  by  endless  eddies.  A 
great  carved  stone  has  plunged  at  its  due 
hour,  to  rejoin  in  the  black  chaos  below  its  fel 
lows  that  have  already  disappeared. 

Through  the  vista  of  these  ghostly  realms  we 
pass  in  our  boat.  It  is  Pierre  Loti  who  voices 
the  dying  magnetism  of  the  place.  "We  are 
not  alone ;  a  world  of  phantoms  has  been  evoked 
around  us  by  the  Moon,  some  little,  some  very 
large.  They  had  been  hiding  there  in  the 
shadow  and  now  suddenly  recommence  their 
mute  conversations,  without  breaking  the  pro 
found  silence,  using  only  their  expressive  hands 

[  126  ] 


BY     HIM     WHO     SLEEPS     AT     PHIL.*: 

and  raised  fingers.  Now  also  the  colossal  Isis 
begins  to  appear ;  the  one  carved  on  the  left  of 
the  portico  of  her  shrine ;  first,  her  refined  head 
with  its  bird's  helmet,  surmounted  by  a  lunar 
disc;  then,  as  the  light  continues  to  descend, 
her  neck  and  shoulders,  and  her  arm,  raised  to 
make  who  knows  what  mysterious,  indicating 
sign;  and  finally  the  slim  nudity  of  her  torso, 
and  her  lips  close  bound.  Behold  her  now,  the 
goddess,  come  forth  from  the  shadow.  But  she 
hesitates;  she  seems  surprised  and  disturbed 
at  seeing  her  feet,  instead  of  the  stones  she 
had  known  for  two  thousand  years,  her  own 
likeness,  a  reflection  of  herself,  that  stretches 
away,  reversed  in  the  mirror  of  water." 

"And  suddenly  again  in  the  midst  of  the 
deep  nocturnal  calm  of  this  temple,  isolated 
here  in  the  lake,  comes  the  sound  of  a  kind  of 
mournful  booming,  of  things  that  topple,  stones 
that  become  detached  and  fall.  Then,  on  the 
surface  of  the  lake,  a  thousand  concentric 
circles  form,  chase  one  another  and  disappear, 
ruffling  indefinitely  this  mirror  embanked  be 
tween  the  terrible  granites,  in  which  Isis  regards 
herself  sorrowfully." 


[  127  ] 


THE     SCHOOL     OF     SYMPATHY 


XXI 

PLAY  OUT  THE  GAME 

Practise  what  you  know  and  you  shall  attain  to  higher 
knowledge.  MATTHEW 


THE  heart  of  man  is  a  lake  which  reflects 
the  mountains  whereon  God  is  throned. 
But  the  surface  must  be  quiet,  and  the 
more  profound  its  depths  the  surer  shall  be 
this   condition  of   reflective  peace.     Gusts   of 
worry  and  waves  of  mood  break  the  image  into 
trembling  fragments.     The  water  is  troubled 
beyond  its  efficacy  to  heal,  and  ills  which  are 
hard  to  bear  begin  to  prompt  a  longing  for  the 
imagined,  because  desired,  oblivion  of  death. 

For  those  who  would  discard  the  labors  of 
life  for  the  seeming  peace  of  death  seldom  are 
willing  to  "enquire  curiously"  if  the  relief 
sought  may  be  gained  in  this  way.  They  con 
ceive  the  universe  as  an  idle  fantasy  wherein  a 
life,  with  its  accumulated  loves  and  hates  and 
variant  experiences,  may  be  snuffed  out  like  a 
candle,  and  darkness  and  negation  follow. 

[  128  ] 


PLAY     OUT     THE     GAME 

Tears  or  fears  have  bred  in  them  a  despair 
which  seeks  redress  not  in  effort  but  in  evasion 
or  suicide,  wholly  disregarding  the  probability 
that  effort  is  an  essential  of  evolution,  a  privi 
lege  continuing  as  time,  a  right  which  may  not 
be  waived,  and  being  used  grows  with  enlarging 
powers.  It  is  as  if  our  lesson  books  were  to 
prove  unexpectedly  difficult  and  in  a  rage  we 
should  throw  them  upon  the  schoolroom  floor, 
refusing  consideration  to  the  obvious  fact  that 
sooner  or  later  we  must  learn  those  lessons  if 
we  are  to  pass  beyond  them  to  a  greater  knowl 
edge.  The  trials  which  they  present  are,  as 
Zoroaster  said,  "merely  the  shavings  in  God's 
carpentry  shop";  it  is  the  carpentry  which  in 
vokes  our  energies. 

These  faint-hearted  climbers  to  the  heights 
of  destiny  forget  the  potentialities  of  life.  Its 
unliquidated  assets  are  ignored  by  them,  its 
opportunities  denied,  its  shadows  so  exagger 
ated  that  their  inherent  beauty  as  the  children 
of  light  becomes  a  source  of  dread.  For  surely 
shadows,  if  our  vision  is  clear,  are  lovely  and 
instructive?  When  Mohammed  was  asked  what 
was  the  most  gracious  thing  on  earth  he  re 
plied  with  superb  simplicity,  "the  shadow  of  a 
palm  tree." 

[  129  ] 


THE      SCHOOL      OF      SYMPATHY 

All  philosophies  have  taught  this  truth  in 
various  guises,  setting  forth  in  due  equation 
the  concordance  of  life  and  death.  A  remark 
able  example  was  discovered  some  years  ago  in 
Egypt.  Its  message  is  broken  and  any  trans 
lation  must  necessarily  lack  the  colors  of  its 
original  environment.  Yet  even  in  fragmentary 
form  and  with  the  colder  rendering  of  our  age 
its  matter,  pertinent  and  brief,  should  be  worthy 
repetition  without  apology.  The  papyrus  was 
found  amongst  the  debris  of  a  Nile  tomb  and 
purports  to  give  us  the  dialogue  between  an 
Egyptian  and  his  Soul.  It  is  a  document  of 
unique  interest ;  and  the  profundity  of  thought 
which  inspired  its  writer  deepens  our  regret 
that  the  papyrus  is  so  mutilated. 

The  beginning  of  the  manuscript  in  which 
this  imaginary  conversation  is  preserved  is  un 
fortunately  lost,  but  the  subject  is  obviously 
connected  with  an  evaluation  of  our  mundane 
lives  and  with  the  nature  of  the  life  to  which 
we  are  born  at  the  event  called  Death.  The 
Soul  of  the  man  has  concluded  an  eloquent 
tirade  on  the  opportunities  presented  by  terres 
trial  life  and  its  corroboration,  death,  but  he 
complains  that  his  Soul  has  not  always  be 
friended  him  with  counsel  and  encouragement; 

[  130  ] 


PLAY     OUT     THE     GAME 

has  not  sufficiently  prompted  him  during  the 
recent  troubles  which  have  come  to  him  during 
his  sojourn  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile. 

"Thou  hast  fled  away  during  these  days  of 
misfortune,  and  thou  shouldst  have  kept  by 
my  side  as  one  who  weeps  for  me,  as  one  who 
walks  near  me.  O  my  Soul,  cease  to  reproach 
me  that  I  mourn  for  the  sorrows  of  my  life, 
cease  to  thrust  me  towards  death;  how  should 
I  go  towards  it  with  entire  pleasure?"  And  he 
proceeds  to  explain  the  various  types  of  labour 
in  which  he  is  engaged,  and  the  work  he  would 
leave  unfinished  and  the  affairs  of  the  world 
wherein  he  is  interested. 

Here  the  Soul  interrupts :  "Thou  cursest  the 
other  world  as  if  thou  wert  a  rich  man."  What 
a  shrewd  thrust  is  here  to  test  his  courage.  But 
the  man  is  in  no  wise  disconcerted  by  this  at 
tack  and  replies,  "It's  no  good,  your  getting 
angry,  I  shall  not  go." 

Then  the  Soul  pictures  to  the  man  the 
troubles  of  the  life  he  is  leading  and  shows  him, 
amongst  other  incidents,  that  the  child  cut  off 
in  the  spring-time  of  its  life  by  being  acciden 
tally  drowned  in  the  Nile,  or  drawn  under  its 
surface  by  a  crocodile,  has  lost  the  opportuni 
ties  of  the  physical  existence,  whereas  the  ma- 

[  131  ] 


THE      SCHOOL      OF      SYMPATHY 

ture  man  has  already  been  through  varied  ex 
periences,  and  should  be  willing  to  face  the 
new  adventures  of  another  life. 

After  some  further  arguments  urged  by  his 
Soul  the  man  is  convinced  that  he  has  nothing 
to  fear  in  death,  and  he  acknowledges  that 
while  he  has  not  much  more  happiness  to  expect 
from  living,  he  would  gladly  rest  a  little.  What 
follows  is  evidently  the  principal  part  of  the 
work,  that  over  which  the  poet  took  most  care. 

The  man  declares  the  misery  and  contempt 
into  which  he  fell  after  experiencing  those 
events  which  were  doubtless  related  in  the 
missing  portion  of  this  extraordinary  doc 
ument.  "See,  my  name  is  more  abused  than 
the  brave  child  about  whom  lies  are  told  to 
his  parents!  See,  my  name  is  more  abused 
than  a  town  which  is  continually  plotting  re 
bellion,  but  which  is  never  found  out! 

"To  whom  shall  I  speak  to-day?  No  one 
remembers  yesterday,  and  no  one  dares  act  at 
the  moment.  To  whom  shall  I  speak  to-day? 
The  earth  is  a  heap  of  evil  doers!  Death 
seems  to  me  to-day  like  the  remedy  for  a  disease, 
like  going  out  into  the  open  air  after  a  fever ! 
Death  seems  to  me  to-day  like  the  odour  of  the 
lotus,  like  repose  on  the  shores  of  a  land  of 

[  132  ] 


PLAY     OUT     THE     GAME 


plenty !  Death  seems  to  me  to-day  like  the  de 
sire  of  a  man  to  see  his  home  after  many  years 
spent  in  captivity!" 

The  Soul,  delighted  with  his  success,  adds  a 
few  well-chosen  words  of  congratulation  to  this 
profession  of  faith,  and  promises  not  even  to 
seem  to  desert  the  man  in  any  hour  of  trouble : 
"When  you  pass  over  and  your  body  still  be 
longs  to  the  earth,  I  will  keep  close  to  you,  and 
yonder  we  shall  dwell  together." 

Such  is  this  strange  manuscript,  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  among  the  many  left  to 
us  from  those  ancient  days.  The  undulation 
of  the  poetry,  the  harmonies  of  colour,  the 
spirit  which  inspired  the  work,  may  not  be  re 
produced  from  this  torn  fragment  of  a  dead 
philosophy,  but  it  sends  down  the  ringing 
grooves  of  time  the  echo  of  a  brave  and 
sympathetic  appreciation  of  life  and  a  readi 
ness  to  meet  the  wider  opportunities  of  death. 


THE   END 


[  133  ] 


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